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Bordeaux Quay

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captain oddsocks
captain oddsocks
First Reviewer
5 out of 5
Avg. Member Rating
1
Review
4
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Editor Pick

Bordeaux Quay

Bordeaux Quay

The restaurant Bordeaux Quay is probably not the kind of place I would have gone for a meal if left to my own devices, but my brother had been working there and wanted to go in for dinner.

The owners and management of Bordeaux quay are among Bristol’s’ most enthusiastic adherents to the principles of the slow food movement, which originated in Italy and suggests that food should not only taste good, it should be good for you, food producers should be treated fairly and the welfare of farm animals and the natural environment should be respected.

Most obviously this translates into a preference for free range meat and eggs and seasonal vegetables grown organically and sourced locally, but there are also less obvious and more creative expressions. When I was in Bristol late in 2007, the owners of Bordeaux quay had commissioned the sailing ship the SS Matthew to travel across to France and return with a shipment of the new season’s wine. A romantic notion with a nod towards centuries of Bristol tradition, surely, but also an environmentally friendly solution and an effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The restaurant is housed in a restored two storey warehouse with tall windows that look out across the water towards the Arnolfini. At first glance the interior looks like just another minimalist contemporary design, but when you settle in, it’s surprisingly inviting and warm. Brendon pointed out that most of the timber, including hundreds of square metres of flooring, was reclaimed or recycled. On closer inspection there were lots of clever touches like solid wooden butchers’ cutting blocks used as coffee tables, furniture constructed from reclaimed timbers and an interesting arrangement of ink-stamped wine cases hanging above the bar.

By now, I was starting to think that perhaps Bordeaux Quay was my kind of place. And then the food came. I’d ordered the least expensive thing on the menu, the mackerel with winter greens (for 10 Pounds), and it was absolutely delicious. I never found out precisely what winter greens were, but I gather that it’s something like nettles or wild growing spinach. In any case, it and a squeeze of lemon complemented the fish beautifully and thinking about it now is making me hungry. My brother chose the venison pie which he said was excellent and Simone had rabbit in wine sauce (both around 13 Pounds),

Bordeaux Quay itself (the actual quay) is named for the ships that would pull in loaded with French wine. The barrels would be unloaded at the dockside and then rolled along the maze of tunnels under Bristol and end up as far away as the cellars of Avery’s the wine merchants, which is up on the hill above Bristol cathedral. So that the heavy barrels could be rolled downhill, the floor of the tunnels were cut at a slight decline, and the buildings at the other end used winches to haul goods up from the cellars, which could be three or four floors deep.

With not just a theoretic preference for sail power over diesel, but the commitment to put that preference into action, the existence of mysterious tunnels, clever use of reclaimed timber, a demonstrable respect for the environment, and top notch food, it turned out that Bordeaux Quay was my kind of place after all.

From journal Orright me Babber?

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