Bristol Neighbourhood Guide: Easton

Bristol Neighbourhood Guide: Easton

Posted on: 26 Apr 2023

We’re back with our guide to Bristol’s diverse and vibrant neighbourhoods – with some cherrypicked spots to showcase just how much is going on in each corner of the city.

 

This week, we’re covering Easton, one of the city’s most fashionable neighbourhoods despite the popularity of areas such as Stokes Croft. Chocker full of much-loved eateries, pubs and history, Easton benefits from the cultural hubs of Stapleton Road and St Marks Road.

 

Read on for our guide to all the nightlife, food, shopping, cultural and historical highlights of Easton…

 

Nightlife:

 

Our rundown of Easton nightlife begins with The Plough: a much-loved community pub filled with all your usual local ales and bar bites as well as offering live music, outdoor seating and even a pool table - a rare pub feature these days! The Plough boasts a diverse music programme of club nights, touring live music, open mic nights and much more with the likes of Bristol legend DJ Derek having played the venue in the past.

The next inclusion on our list is a truly unique watering hole, The Chelsea Inn. This offbeat pub offers a wide range of drinks; a colourful patio; regular punk-friendly live music shows; dub, DnB, jungle and acrobats nights and even serves toasted sandwiches. Easton is a real favourite of Bristol’s weird and wonderful and The Chelsea celebrates that in style!

Still serving the best cheese and onion rolls in the country (their cheap and chunky cobs went viral last year), The Sugar Loaf is a friendly local pub with a beautiful, secluded garden that regularly screens all the best live sports. Offering Sunday lunches at a good price as well as their world-famous rolls, this is one of the friendliest community boozers you’re likely to find.

Located just off the Avon Spine Road, Lebeqs Tavern is a recently re-painted, old-fashioned pub. Boasting a cavernous interior and multiple floors, Lebeqs features a television for live sports and a DJ on Friday and Saturday nights. The bar has a diverse, football-loving community, indeed until recently, Lebeq FC was the best pub football team in the UK - they have since changed their name to FC Bristol.

Closing our guide to Easton nightlife is Stapleton Road’s The Black Swan which, following a May bank holiday extravaganza, will close its doors for a year-long refurbishment. Known as one of Bristol’s best purveyors of underground rave culture, regularly hosting outdoor and indoor events showcasing the best local talent in Drum & Bass, Garage, Dubstep and Techno.

Food:

 

As well as a range of excellent nightlife highlights, Easton is also home to some of the best restaurants and cafes in Bristol. First up, Garden of Easton is a plant-filled, rustic bar/kitchen located on the famous St Marks Road. Serving artful meals and drinks that include delectable sharing plates, global tapas as well as top quality coffee and house cocktails, Garden of Easton is a real neighbourhood favourite that celebrates locally sourced ingredients from breakfast to dinner.

Another popular Easton eatery is the iconic Bristol Sweet Mart. Opening its doors all the way back in 1978, the shop has become a staple of St Marks Road, stocking over 9,000 products from all over the world, fondly referred to on the shop’s website as the ‘Aladdin’s cave of foods’. Since 2009, Sweet Mart has also run a deli serving authentic Indian food cooked on the premises using fresh ingredients and slow cooking methods. Alongside Curries and Snacks, Authentic Indian Sweets can be bought from the deli.

Next up is a special cafe right at the heart of the Easton community. No. 12 curates some of the best coffee in Bristol, bringing it all together in a cosy corner stop. Caffeine heads can partner their hot beverage with a range of sourdough toasties, cakes, sausage rolls and other savouries - all made in-house. No. 12 also sells a range of proper wines made by actual winemakers in family wineries.

Stapleton Road’s Bikkle Island is another Easton institution and a true hidden gem in Bristol’s burgeoning food scene. Unassuming in its appearance, Bikkle is known throughout BS5 and beyond as serving some of the best Caribbean cuisines that the city has to offer. So indulge yourself in succulent, home-cooked jerk chicken and goat curry that’s to die for, but be prepared to queue for it - this place is popular!

Next, we have a proper cafe, perfect for filling yourself with copious amounts of food when feeling slightly under the weather after a heavy night. Sitting on St Marks Road, Monte Carlo Cafe is a family-run hang-out that is always buzzing, perfectly in tune with the bustling, multicultural community around. With a diverse and vibrant food menu to mull over, this is another of Easton’s hidden gems.

Thali Easton is a bit of a Bristol mainstay, having previously had restaurants in Bedminster and Totterdown. Now back to just one venue, this is a cosy friendly space serving healthy and delicious Indian street food as well as takeaway tiffins. Beginning life as a street food truck at Glastonbury Festival, Thali showcases the hero dishes of India in an unconventional, makeshift and unexpected manner. The venue has also partnered up with a local catering service to offer a wedding menu to die for.

We’re closing our rundown of food highlights with East Bristol Bakery. Again located on St Marks Road, this community bakery serves top quality, handmade bread, pastries and cakes, all made with the utmost care. Opening over 5 years ago, the artisan bakery now has a new venue at Wapping Wharf. We recommend the famous cinnamon swirls, you will not be disappointed.

Culture:

 

Our first cultural highlight is the award-winning Easton Jamia Masjid. A central feature of the Easton community since 1983, the masjid is one of the largest mosques in the South West and was recently refurbished. The mosque has won Numerous awards and recognitions for its work in the community, including the BCFM Diversity Award for Inspirational Leadership and The BMFF (Bristol Multi Faith Forums) Love Your Neighbour award for Cohesion and Inclusiveness.

Easton is also home to two renowned theatre companies, namely Desperate Men and Bristol Physical Theatre Project. The UK’s longest-running street theatre company, Desperate Men have performed their original, accessible comic theatre in outdoor locations all over the world. The Bristol Physical Theatre Project offer workshops and regular classes with the aim of training and researching, creating opportunities for performers, theatremakers and performing arts students

History:

 

In terms of history, Easton has international significance in that Banksy’s ‘Cat and Dog’ is located on the corner of Robertson Road and Foster Street. One of the earliest known examples of the legendary street artist’s work, this colourful artwork is accompanied by the words: “There are crimes that become innocent and even glorious through their splendour, number and excess”. Also, speaking of Banksy, the secretive artist is said to have lived in Easton during the 1990s.

The name Easton probably came from the Anglo-Saxon ‘East Tun’, meaning East Farm. St Marks Road has long been the beating heart of Easton; one of Bristol’s most diverse neighbourhoods with a rich mix of ethnicities, the area is a tight-knit one and regularly hosts massive events bringing together the whole community.

So, there it is, 365Bristol’s guide to Easton. It’s impossible to round up all the nightlife, food, shopping, cultural and historical highlights in 1,000 words but please get in contact with us here and let us know your favourite hangouts or locations.

 

Images: Patrick Bate

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Article by:

Stanley Gray

Stan is a born and bred Bristolian, recently graduated from studying English Literature in Sheffield. His passions are music and literature and he spends the majority of his time in venues all over the city, immersing himself in Bristol’s alternative music scene. A lifelong Bristol City fan, Stan’s Saturdays are spent watching his team both home and away.