Gosha’s House – restaurant review

To experience a meal at King Street’s new restaurant, Gosha’s House, you’ll need to have a bit of luck on your side.

First, you’ll need to spot the place. The unassuming façade offers little to distinguish itself from its well-established pub neighbours, doing more to fill the space between them than compete for their customers.

Second, given that their online opening hours are more of a suggestion than a rule, you’ll have to be lucky to catch them open. Whether Gosha’s House is using this as an unorthodox tactic of drumming up suspense or just haven’t worked out how to edit their website is unclear.

In any case, they’ve certainly succeeded in making themselves quite the mystery on King Street.

The interior of Gosha’s House gives little away

If you do make it inside, you will find whitewashed stone walls and bare wooden dining furniture, dimly lit by Edison bulbs. The bar area is a little less austere, with low hanging lights, a blue marbled wall and a potted plant, but still no hint of Poland.

The only vaguely Eastern European element is the soaring operatic soundtrack, which sounded suspiciously Eurovision-esque on a recent Wednesday evening. To their credit, this music choice worked wonders in adding atmosphere to a mostly deserted dining room.

Once in, procuring a meal at Gosha’s is still a challenge. Ordering food may only be done at the bar – a rule that is displayed nowhere and made evident only by the strange determination of staff to avoid diners’ eyes at all costs.

The handwritten menus didn’t give much choice but then, as a sign at the bar advised, if you want to order their specialities, you’ll need to get your act together. The restaurant requires two days’ notice to prepare their slow cooked pork shanks or beef short ribs.

If you don’t happen to be that organised, you’ll have to settle for the regular menu, largely featuring pierogi (£7 for 6). These are deep-fried dough parcels containing various fillings and presented with a side of fried onion in butter or crispy pork bits, as well as house slaw and soured cream.

Pierogi are on the menu in a number of forms

Although you can order traditional pierogi, filled with maris piper potato, white curd cheese and onion, the restaurant strays from the authentic Polish experience by offering fillings like pork, minced beef or tofu.

The reality of these fried ‘parcels of joy’, as described by their website, was a little underwhelming. The pierogi themselves were reasonably tasty. The meat inside both the Miss Piggy and Blushing Beef pierogi was tender and the fried shell perfectly crispy, but the accompanying sour cream and slaw were a little too heavy alongside the greasiness of the pierogi.

A well-seasoned side of skin-on fries completed the main course.

The dessert pierogi were a served with Irish whisky cream

It was more pierogi for dessert, this time the Drunken Banana pierogi (£5) for dessert, in which the crispiness of the fried dough complemented the warm squish of banana inside, and some drizzled chocolate sauce sweetened the deal. The Irish whiskey cream alongside it also tasted deliciously decadent.

Located within Bristol’s Beermuda Triangle, if you hanker after anything greasy once a few pints down, Gosha’s place is the place to go. You just can’t rely on it being open.

Gosha’s House
19 King Street, Bristol, BS1 4EF
0117 2390 167
www.goshashouse.com