‘We’re part of a great change in Bristol’

Sometimes Bristol catches you from a slightly different angle and you stop to take it all in like some strange déjà vu.

No? That’s never happened to you? Well, maybe it will at Bambalan, the latest restaurant from the crew behind what is arguably Bristol’s biggest food and drink success stories of the last few years, which looks right down onto the city centre from underneath Colston Tower.

Bambalan, when it opens after the first May bank holiday, will be a Middle Eastern and North African-inspired 450-capacity restaurant with cocktail bar and roof terrace looking right across the city centre from Colston Hall down to sister bar Milk Thistle.

It sits inside the old bus drivers’ canteen on the second floor of the tower’s base where there is a central bar, an open kitchen with clay oven and, of course, the terrace which sweeps around the building with a fire pit at the front where cocktails can be sipped above the traffic below.

From the vista, if you look really hard, you can probably pick out the clandestine entrance to Milk Thistle, the second opening in the now seven-strong chain by Bristol-born partners Jason Mead, Nathan Lee and Kevin Stokes.

With a bit of imagination you might pick out the rooftops above The Ox (third opening on the list) and Pata Negra (fourth). But the view doesn’t stretch to Hyde & Co just off the Triangle (the first) or the second Ox on Whiteladies Road (the fifth) – or the third Ox even (sixth) which is in Cheltenham.

Confused? It’s hard to keep up with Jason, Nathan and Kevin who have been opening a new restaurant or bar in Bristol once every year on average since 2010.

“It kind of feels normal now,” Jason, 46, originally from Southmead, says after a quick tour of Bambalan where the finishing touches are being applied. “But this one is a little bit of a bigger beast so it’s a little bit daunting.

“I suppose this is also like a new build for us,” he says, adding that the restaurant has actually been on the cards for the last three years. “The others have always been refurbishments. They were underground and clandestine mostly. But this one is going to be a completely different experience.”

Bambalan will be the first with outside eating and drinking and the first to open in the mornings for breakfast and brunch. It is a noticeable shift away from the nocturnal brand that has given the trio so much success so far.

We’ve been menu testing this week…fancy a sneak peek? pic.twitter.com/Fh3NyMysGM

— Bambalan (@BAM_BA_LAN) March 24, 2016

Jason says: “I don’t really see this as a risk because of how Bristol is growing. If you get what Bristol is about you can realize that it’s changing.

“We don’t sit around and and think what is the next big trend. It comes naturally, organically – and we go with it. We follow what we like and let the buildings dictate how the new openings turn out.

“Bambalan was always going to be light and open plan, with a kitchen at the back and a terrace looking over the centre.”

He says the idea with all their openings is to give Bristol something it doesn’t have, and he adds that since they started their expansion, Bristol – and especially the centre – has changed for the better.

“We’ve grown up in Bristol and have seen the good and the bad sides to the city and especially the town centre.

“Corn Street wasn’t a very pleasant place in the 1980s and 90s – there were constant fights in the streets.

“But now it has all changed. We opened and more and more places have opened up too. And we hope more are coming.

“It would be arrogant to say we have done it on our own, but we have been part of a great change. Anyone who has been here for the last 10 or 15 years knows that theses changes are for the better in the city centre.”

As we speak the centre is a building site as preparations are made for the new MetroBus which will come with widespread pedestrianisation right in front of Bambalan and stretching to some of their other bars and restaurants on St Augustine’s Parade and Corn Street.

“Eventually we want people sitting outside Milk Thistle and having a drink there and then walking straight over to Bambalan,” Jason points out.

So, after seven openings in six years, what’s next for the team? “We’ve looked at a plan and want to aim for two openings every years for five years.

“But we want to stay in the South West though. We said when we had three we didn’t want to open any more in Bristol,” he adds with a laugh.

Read more: New wine bar opening near Temple Meads