The Butchers' Charms The Butchers' Arms (Eldersfield)

My blog this week is about Michelin-starred pub The Butchers Arms in Eldersfield. Now I know what you’re thinking...last week I said that this wasn’t a critic’s blog, and now here I am, blogging about a Michelin-starred joint. That doesn’t sound like Avon Gorged.

In fact, the reason I have chosen to write about it is because it was very Avon Gorged. It was a really great experience filled with brilliant food. The kind of food that you want to tell everyone you know about, at the same time as wanting to keep it all to yourself. Right up my street some may say - except that it wasn’t because it was in Gloucestershire.

Gorging, not grumbling

This week I had a really bad food experience from one of my favourite restaurants.

This is a beginning sentence I really didn't want to write. And in fact, I’m not going to go any further.

Avon Gorged is supposed to be about gorging in Bristol. So that is why I’m choosing not to write about my experience this week. It was bad, but I know that they were having an off day. So I'm going to give them another chance.

Having no individual focus for my blog this week however, gives me the opportunity to mention a couple of places/experiences I hadn't quite got around to honouring...

Poco and pork

I think I used to be a bit snobby about small plates. I’m not sure why, perhaps I’d eaten too many plates of rubbish tapas (hello La Tasca). However, they definitely are big news these days. Certainly I couldn’t get away from them in Vancouver, although I used to think that might just be because everyone’s really skinny there.

There have been a couple of small plate restaurants on my list for a while since moving to Bristol, but Poco certainly was at the forefront. I’ve heard nothing but excellent reviews, not just about the food, but the ethos behind Tom Hunt the founder of Poco. That ethos is local, seasonal and ethical. So the big 3 really. Indeed, the first statement on the website is that “90% of our ingredients are sourced from suppliers within 20 miles of Bristol” which is no mean feat.  

No wonder they’re batting for Best Ethical Restaurant in this year’s Observer Food awards. Excited by all these reviews and research, I rambled down after a few beers in Canteen to whet the appetite, to finally find out what all the fuss was about.

The pop-up post Kathers Kitchen at 40 Alfred Place

Twitter is a powerful thing. Twitter told me about last week’s Bristol Big Market, part of Bristol Green Week. Twitter told me Whitney Houston had died before it had even hit the press. Twitter will I’m sure, keep me updated with all the Glastonbury gossip (and further fuel my jealousy). And so it was through Twitter that I found out about 40 Alfred Place, “the world’s first permanent pop-up venue” nestled in Kingsdown.

What a seriously good idea. This place can be rented for parties and events, be an Italian one night, a Mexican the next and finish the week with a wine tasting. My route to work takes me past 40 Alfred Place every day, yet somehow I’d never spotted it. Now I’ve been however, it’s a different story as I’m constantly looking for any faint signs that there might be a new pop-up night being prepared (the biggest clue is often copious amounts of tealights).

BBQ, burgers and brilliance Grillstock Smokehouse

I have a friend who hates any word used to describe food. Well not any word, but those words that people who love talking about food will bash around: delicious, tasty, succulent, smothered, gelatinous, lip-smacking. Oh, you know the sort I mean.

So...I guess he’s going to hate this blog entry, because it’s going to be pretty hard to talk about Grillstock, Bristol’s king of the BBQ, without launching myself into fifty shades of food porn. Indeed, it seems I’m not alone. Nearly every review, tweet or Facebook mention I’ve read of it so far has been dripping in alliterative adjectives (smoky, sticky and succulent – hell, the company’s slogan is ‘Meat, Music and Mayhem’).

So I’ll try my very best but be warned friend, you’re not going to like it. Not one tantalisingly tasty titbit of it.

Bakery beginnings Hart's Bakery

It started with a toastie.

Actually, a lot started with this toastie. Mainly the conviction that I can’t keep eating all these amazing things and not writing about them. Being whisked around the finest coffee haunts in the south west courtesy of my partner's coffee habit, it occurred to me that neither of us were talking about the food. And dang Bristol, you do food well. So sorry all, I’m starting a food blog. It was always going to happen. I don’t know why I denied it for so long.

My first blog post is to shout from the rooftops the virtues of Bristol’s Hart’s Bakery. Seriously, listen up because this place is banging. Being pretty housebound at the minute due to tedious back issues, I was driven to Hart’s Bakery last weekend for a small brunch outing – one of the best kinds of outing in my opinion. I had heard a rumour that Laura from Hart’s Bakery does the best custard tarts in town so I was prepared to be pretty happy at the end of my visit. Well, I was (and pretty laden down with various bread and pastry based items too).