Bill's Bill's Bill's The Triangle, Bristol

I’m not usually a big fan of a chain restaurant. I think a lot of it has to do with the huge mix of dishes on the menu...if I see the words ‘Cajun’ next to spaghetti carbonara I get a bit edgy. So with that in mind, I was a little wary when I first visited Bill’s new restaurant on the Triangle.

It was my first experience of a Bill’s, as I’m reasonably northern and most of their restaurants are in the south, including fifteen just in London. The Bristol branch opened last year and hearing good things, including the buzzwords “good value”, I thought it best to try it out myself.

And it can’t have been bad...because I've been back four times since.

Small Bar

It was an embarrassingly long time before I set foot in Small Bar, Bristol’s newest craft beer venue. I have no excuse for this. However, now I’ve finally made it I can assure you it won’t be long before I return. 

Small Bar occupies a lovely building on King Street, which is rapidly becoming a real destination for decent beer in Bristol (The Royal Navy Volunteer Tavern and Beer Emporium are just across the street). The name Small Bar had given me the impression that I’d struggle to find a seat at 7:30pm on a Friday. Thankfully the place is anything but small, given you plenty of perching options to while away the evening. The interior is very pared down, with plenty of low lighting and wood giving you the feeling of a good local boozer.

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.