Bertha’s Pizza – restaurant review

There’s a large mural on one wall of Bertha’s Pizza on Cumberland Road at the top of Gaol Ferry Steps.

The black and white illustration by Hannah Cousins is a panoramic view of the Floating Harbour with the Clifton Suspension Bridge on the left and the Thekla on the right.

Towards the middle is Bertha’s first bricks and mortar restaurant complete with bright canary yellow doors and nearby the Land Rover Defender in the same colour scheme in which Bertha’s Pizza made their name.

A panorama of so much of Bristol is a reminder of some of the many places where Bertha’s plied their trade while on four wheels: Hart’s Bakery, BrewDog, Moor Beer, Bloc, Redcliffe Wharf, to name just a few.

Graham and Kate still own the Land Rover (it’s their one motorised form of transport for them and their young daughter) and it will still be seen at a few events, but their time on the road was all leading up to what the pair have now created here in the original stables of the old Bristol gaol which was most recently the Wapping Wharf marketing suite and before that Mud Dock Deli.

The main dining room is upstairs, with a few yellow chairs among the wooden tables, floor and overhanging beams.

Pizzas here cost from £6, with a couple coming ‘white’ without tomato including the fruity ‘It’s a peach’.

A ‘meat and heat’ pizza on a recent Friday evening was superb. Cured pepperoni was matched with hot chilli honey giving an intriguing combination of flavours that completely worked.

Over the other side of the table, short shrift was being made of the marinara with oregano, basil and olive oil, although the basil was slightly too overpouring. The margherita meanwhile was a classic of the genre.

Bertha’s are one of those places that do one thing very well, and they do it very well indeed.

They are all cooked in an oven specially made by a fifth generation oven maker in Naples with the searing 500-degrees heat producing charcoal-blistered sourdough creations with a chewy crust so good it can be saved until last.

Wash the pizzas down with beers from locals Wiper & True and Moor, and also excitingly new Brislington brewery Lost & Grounded once they are fully up and running. If you want some fizz, prosecco is served by the glass or bottle.

Then there are gelatos and sorbets, with a neighbouring table raving about the elderflower and yogurt version, with Wiper & True milkshake stout ice cream and rosemary the other options on our visit.

They are of course made in-house, and also don’t be surprised if in the future you see fresh bread for sale here, with ex-McLaren Formula One team engineer Graham taking the science of dough and fermentation very seriously indeed.

Graham himself has named this corner of town Bristol’s nascent ‘pizza quarter’, with Bertha’s Pizza joining Pizzarova at the other end of Gaol Ferry Steps and Pi Shop at the new General Hospital development just down Cumberland Road.

It’s quite a triumvirate and if this were the Olympic Games and we were at the 100m, Bertha’s would win by only a few hundredths of a second. Gold is still theirs, however, in a shade very close to the colour of their trusty Land Rover and new restaurant doors.

Bertha’s Pizza, Cumberland Road, Spike Island, Bristol, BS1 6UX
0117 829 0003

www.berthas.co.uk/restaurant.html

Read more: My Bristol Favourites: Graham Farragher