Reviews

Glassboat in Bristol - restaurant review

Posted on: 2015-05-13

Windows on all sides, wooden floors and well-spaced tables there's a delightfully airy and openly informal feel to the place. Fine dining in a cracking location on a seminal, prestigious food mecca.

---

When it comes to iconic locations in Bristol they don't come much more iconic than the harbourside, home of the Glassboat restaurant. A converted barge anchored at the top of Welsh Back opposite current waterside building developments, it's a floating restaurant of beauty, majesty and indisputable elegance. 

With windows on all sides, wooden floors and well-spaced tables there's a delightfully airy and openly informal feel to the place. And with its view of Bristol Bridge and the occasional passing swan - or during our night, occasional, frantic rowers - calming, undulating waves and candles flickering on the tables, it's also heart-flutteringly romantic. 

But enough of my sentimental proclivities, I was there to get down to the real and very serious business of trying out their French-inspired, Mediterranean-themed menu.

I kicked off with Asparagus, poached egg with sauce hollandaise (£6.50), which was an absolutely heavenly starter. The asparagus was soft, not al dente as I'd feared, and was full of flavour, enhanced by the perfectly cooked, glowing orange and wonderfully runny-in-the-middle egg and the piquant hollandaise sauce. Before we'd even stepped foot over the Glassboat threshold, my partner had been determined to try the frogs legs (£7.00), and try them she did. Served on a bed of wild garlic risotto, the legs were meaty and tender and worked well with the risotto, although she did note the chefs could have toned it down with the garlic which was a bit too overpowering. 

My mains came in the form of pork tenderloin with sausage, grain mustard sauce and lyonnaise potatoes (£17.50). The whole plate blessed my lips with the excitable kiss of gastronomic deliciousness. The pork was expertly cooked, succulent and tasty, while the sausage - a chunky wedge propped up on the plate like an imposing, single, meaty tower - was nicely smoky. My partner's roast poussin, ratatouille and olive oil mash (£17.50) was equally sublime, surprisingly plenty of meat on the diminutive chicken, and the stewed vegetable ratatouille was powerfully pungent and intense. 

Our two accompanying side dishes of king cabbage with lardons and beans with red onions and pine nuts (£3.50 each) were top-notch accompaniments, the cabbage soft and slightly buttery contrasted with the salty, crispy lardons, and the beans fusing marvellously with the sweet onion and soft, smoky pine nuts.

Pudding? Oh, there's always room for pudding. My banana ice cream, chocolate cream and banana wedge (£6.00) was, for me, the perfect pud, a mellifluous, effortless blend of complimenting textures and flavours, while my partner's honey bavarois, rhubarb & blood orange (£6.00) nearly sent her into paroxysms of squealing delight, the wobbly creme caramel-style bavarois exquisitely working with the sharp, tart rhubarb and blood orange.

Service was faultless, polite and attentive without being obsequiously overpowering, and the whole vibe of the restaurant - particularly as dusk crept in to enshroud the restaurant in a darker, candle-flickering, romantically atmospheric glow - became one of laid back, chilled out gastronomic cool. Fine dining in a cracking location on a seminal, prestigious food mecca.

4/5

Reviewed and pictures by Jamie Caddick for 365Bristol - the leading events and entertainment website for Bristol.

**Looking for a recommended restaurant? Just send us a message by clicking here - tell us date, how many people, type of food and area of Bristol and we will send you our recommendations for the area!

---