Wallfish Bistro – restaurant review

Since opening on Princess Victoria street in Clifton Village in 2013, Wallfish Bistro has attracted praise from the great and the good of the restaurant world.  Jay Rayner gushed about the menu in The Observer in 2014, while the 2015 Michelin Guide inspectors described its “careful, classical cooking” and have included it in their hallowed pages every year since.

Despite this overt success, co-owners, chef Seldon Curry and restaurant manager Liberty Wenham, announced in March this year that they would be closing the restuarant and moving away from Bristol because of rising costs.

A recent buyer fell through at the last minute, and dining on a recent weekday night had a whiff of a swan song about it: everyone still performing their parts but without their hearts really in it.

The compact upstairs dining room

In the compact upstairs dining room, brown leather and light wood prevails, though some of the paint has seen better days, flecked with the remains of meals past.  The white napkin had an unfortunate crusty green stain on it when unfolded, but the cutlery and glasses were clean.

Liberty recommended a light and fruity glass of centelleo tempranillo (£5.75) from the carefully considered wine list and it was very pleasant to sip while browsing the menu, which is designed to showcase the best of the West Country.

Wallfish is an old English word for snail, though none were on the menu this time.  Instead, it was dominated by seafood, and several tables ordered oysters from a large selection that includes scrumpy-fried or baked with bone marrow (both £3 each), along with rock oysters fished from Porlock, Brownsea Island and Colchester.

Seafood reigned amongst the main courses too, with just one vegetarian dish of borlotti beans and braised courgettes (£14), a rack of Cinderford lamb (£22), and steak with bone marrow and chips (£19) breaking up the fish, crab and lobster monopoly.

I opted for the roasted turbot (£22) and Liberty brought a brown glazed water jug shaped like a seal to the table, along with some fresh bread.  She poured out a glass of water to the sound of gurgling and glugs from inside the jug.  “It’s brilliant, isn’t it?  It even has its own sound effects,” she said flatly, as if she had heard it all a thousand times before.

The slices of bread were soft and oiled with a chewy, salty crust, and were paired with a vibrant green anchovy mayonnaise with a horseradish-like-kick.  Bluesy American rock played fairly loudly from a speaker above the hatch through to the kitchen, where the sounds and smells of cooking soon drifted, my slab of turbot safe in the hands and pans of Seldon.

As the restaurant began to fill up with diners confidently announcing their bookings or slinking in and pausing awkwardly in the doorway to ask for a table, an incredibly fragrant dish arrived.  The turbot was an astoundingly thick piece, golden and crisp on the outside and absolutely pristine snowy white in the centre with a lovely gentle flavour that was drawn out and enhanced by the buttery sauce and bursting capers.

The perfectly cooked turbot

A huge strip of bones split the fillet in two and attested to the size and quality of the fish, all of which is brought in fresh from day boats around the South West coast.

Cubes of crisp fried potato were seasoned perfectly, with no need for salt or pepper on the table, and the tenderstem broccoli added some crunch to the plate, though by the end the sauce was a little overpowering and I found it wanting for a squeeze of lemon to cut through the heavy butter and cream.

Though the main course was enormously filling, dessert was too tempting to pass up.  A summer berry and sparkling wine jelly with elderflower ice cream (£6.50) or ginger parkin with iced vodka (£6) were just a little too decadent, but a scoop of stem ginger and clotted cream ice cream (£2.50) from a choice of New Forest strawberry and dark chocolate, among others, hit the spot.

After a fairly long wait, as by now Seldon was having to cook main courses for a whole dining room on his own, it arrived accompanied by a rolled ginger snap.  Though the texture of the ice cream was made rather lumpy by large ice crystals, the pieces of stem ginger were a delicious palate cleanser to end the meal with.

It will be a great shame to lose this great restaurant that has returned cooking pedigree to the site of Keith Floyd’s first bistro, as the plaque outside proclaims.  However, for the weary team, it may well feel that the next step of their journey cannot come soon enough.

Wallfish Bistro
4 Kings Road, Clifton Village, Bristol , BS8 4AB
01179 735435
www.wallfishbistro.co.uk