Reviews

The Ashville in Southville, Bristol - Pub Restaurant Review

Posted on: 2015-03-02

The Ashville is a wonderful local pub with skilled chefs at the helm of a top notch menu, friendly, convivial staff and unquestionably some of the finest cuisine in the city. It might be tucked out the way but it's worth making the digression for.

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Southville has gone from strength to strength when it comes to racking up a reputation as one of the gastronomic destinations to head to in the city.  

With venues such as The Spotted Cow, The Lounge, The Burger Joint and The Tobacco Factory, its vibrant, occasionally idiosyncratic mix of cafes, bars and restaurants have proven they take the food just as seriously as the drink. No more pickled eggs in a packet of crisps or ham and mustard bap in a basket on the bar. No Sir, now we're talking serious, well-made, locally sourced food with the finest ingredients for the more discerning palate in an area that effortlessly combines urban savviness with a fiercely independent, bohemian principle.

With around 30 pubs closing around the UK every week, the fate of the British boozer has never been in more uncertain hands, and with many pubs around Bristol closing to make way for chain bars or repulsive flats for a population of professionals who can barely afford them anyway has been a worrying indictment of the shape of the pub industry. 

However, doom and gloom need not pervade the mood, especially when you can take great, comforting solace in the fact that a pub restaurant such as the The Ashville exists to serve the local Southville community.  Before it was known as The Try Again, an old school pub that was the stopping off point for a livener or five for Bristol City fans en route to an Ashton Gate match, and it's undergone such a dramatic refurbishment as to be unrecognisable from its previous incarnation.  

The two rooms that existed before have made way for one large spacious area. It's lighter and brighter too with duck egg blue tongue and groove panels, stripped pine tables, New England-style white furniture and flowers on every table. In the most complimentary sense, there's a slight restaurant-by-the-pier feel to it, the kind of place you can imagine located not far from a seaside resort, and baskets of shells dotted around wouldn't be out of place. 

There's a marble-topped bar if you just want to pop in for a pint, and guest ales are £3.50 a pint including Doom Bar and Bath Ales Gem, while cider lovers are well catered for with Rosie's Pig on draught, Addlestones Cloudy and Stowford Press. Another nice little touch is a third-pint board of three beers or ciders for £3.60, a great opportunity to refresh the palate with a sampling of different beverages. 

But to the food.  

My Baked Camembert Served with artisan toast and onion marmelade (£5.95) was an awesome starter, the thick, gooey, rich melted Camembert providing the perfect bubbling cheesy cauldron for the toast and complimented blissfully with the sweet onion marmalade. My partner's parma ham and fig salad (£6.95) with baby leaf salad, reduced balsamic with fresh Parmesan, port and fig chutney was a first-class starter, the thin, salty, subtley smokey ham working exquisitely with the salad and dense, tangy chutney. 

It's often said you can tell how proficient a chef is simply by how well he can cook a steak, in which case my 8oz Fillet Steak (£17.95) is testament to one of the best chefs in Bristol. Served with hand-cut triple cooked chips, roasted field mushroom, grilled tomato, and dressed leaves, it was a mighty chunk of prime steak, cooked well done to my specification, but still retaining a juicy, tender succulence, and the peppercorn sauce was breathtakingly fiery and intense. My partner's 8oz Rib-Eye Steak (£16.95) was equally faultless.

For dessert I made a feverish bee-line for the sticky toffee pudding with toffee sauce (£3.95). I cheekily asked for a scoop of Marshfield vanilla ice cream and the whole combination worked sensationally, the light but rich pudding blending with the intense sauce and counterbalanced with the deliciously creamy ice cream for a full-on mouthgasm. Chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream (£3.95) was my partner's pudding of choice , crunchy of top and fabulously gooey of middle, the delicious chocolatey richness offset by the ice cream. 

There's no question that the food here is being taken extremely seriously under the confident, talented hand of head chef Simon Miller, and our three-course extravaganza epitomised the quality of the produce and the incontrovertible skill of the chefs. When we visited on a Saturday evening, the place was filled with locals and buzzing with a laid-back, cosy, convivial atmosphere, and our waiter and waitress were exemplary throughout the evening, attentive, chatty, but giving us time to enjoy the food without being imposing. 

The Ashville is a wonderful local pub serving up some of the finest cuisine in the city. It might be tucked out the way (which actually makes it feel like your own unique, personal discovery when you find it), but it's definitely worth making the digression for. 

5/5

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

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