Restaurants / Reviews
Flour & Ash
The Gloucestershire-made wood-fired oven at Flour & Ash was burning brightly on Wednesday afternoon several hours before the restaurant welcomed its first paying customers of the day.
Its orange glow could be seen when passing along Cheltenham Road and will no doubt draw hungry passers-by inside like the proverbial moths to a flame, even if they didn’t already know that Flour & Ash are making some of the finest pizzas in Bristol.
Owner Steve Gale admits that he has “neither the space, nor the budget to buy fancy cheffy gadgetry. If we can’t cook something using the wood oven (or our tiny fryer), then it’s not going on the menu – simple.”
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A key element here is that pizzas are made from sourdough which has been left to prove for up to 72 hours.
The base on my £10 chorizo pizza was quite dense, chewy but springy and full of flavour, with the chorizo deliciously juicy, accompanied by rocket salad and fiery jalapenos.
Other pizza options currently include wood-roast aubergine, aged beef fillet and British four cheeses (goats curd, Oxford blue, Laverstoke buffalo and Old Winchester).
Then there are the no tomato sauce pizzas: ox cheek and red wine ragu (£12) with bechamel and parmesan; wood roast ceps (£14) with truffled white onion puree, garlic and thyme; and shellfish (£14) with clams, mussels and wild tiger prawns.
Starters including crispy ox tongue, white truffle salami, wood-roast clams and salad from the Severn Project.
There are some 30 seats inside Flour & Ash, with wooden picnic tables with metal covers down the centre of the dining room which also features a pile of chopped wood making up the bar.
It’s certainly not all pizza here either, with the two choices of desserts being a daily-changing selection of sorbets and ice cream, which on Wednesday included coconut and blackcurrant sorbets; and rice pudding, caramel, peanut butter, dark chocolate, and rum and raisin ice creams.
Among the drinks, local breweries such as Wiper & True, Wild Beer and the New Bristol Brewery are well represented.
The wood-fired oven will have its work cut out once word spreads about Flour & Ash – one of the best and most significant new restaurant openings in Bristol this year.
Flour & Ash, 203B Cheltenham Road, Bristol, BS6 5QX
0117 908 3228
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