COR, North Street: ‘The best new Bristol restaurant of 2022’ – restaurant review

If someone asks you for a recommendation of a new place in Bristol for a special lunch or dinner, please take my word for it and send them immediately to COR on North Street in Bedminster.

This new restaurant may have only just opened its doors, but it is the culmination of many years of work for the husband and wife team of Mark and Karen Chapman.

Mark’s dad flew to the UK from Sydney to help build this restaurant, and he can be so proud of his son and daughter-in-law who have opened what is undoubtedly Bristol’s best new restaurant of 2022.

After spending the last six years overseeing the kitchens at Bravas, Gambas and Cargo Cantina, this is Mark’s first foray into running his own business, with he and his small team of chefs bringing out the small plates themselves to the tables as they are ready.

On Thursday lunchtime, one of the first days of COR officially being open following almost a week of a soft launch, the highlights came thick and fast.

The concise menu and sheer skill on display took me back more than a decade to the days of Flinty Red on Cotham Hill and also to the days not so long ago when Bristol was regularly spoken about as one of the UK’s finest cities for restaurants.

Our crown has slipped slightly since then, with the buzz around new restaurants tending to be ones opened by experienced teams already with three or four other locations; but with the arrival of COR, it’s as if the glory days are back.

Canelé, mushroom, duxelles, tarragon, lemon

I would have left content from COR solely after the canelé (£6.90) from the specials menu. A regular Saturday morning purchase of mine at Farro bakery in St Paul’s with a custard interior had been transformed into a savoury sensation with a hit of pure umami from the finest slithers of mushrooms.

From the other smallest of the small plates, the potatoes chips (£4.90) cooked with rosemary and seaweed salt, with a pot of aioli for dipping, provided a few minutes’ of silence as my 11- and seven-year-old daughters’ tucked in once they had finished their buttermilk fried chicken with tarragon mayonnaise and pickled girolles (£6.50).

Another smaller plate was chorizo (£7) not from Spain but from Suffolk, spicy and sweet and served with a another one of those pickled girolles that can be seen in glass jars on some of the shelves in this small dining room on the corner of North Street and Melville Terrace that was most recently Flip cafe and deli, and before that Eastern Tandoori.

If a restaurant can be judged by the books on its shelves, then Cor is a clear winner

The COR website says that its food and drink are influenced by Mark and Karen’s love of the Mediterranean.

“The menu plays to Mark’s fine dining training yet also incorporates the more fun, sharing style food we love and that Mark has been working with over the last six years.

“It’s a small menu that is seasonally updated and will be created with the aim of reducing waste and surplus in the kitchen with creativity from the team shown on our menus.”

This creativity was on show with the cannellini beans, lemon beurre blanc and smoked caviar (£8.20); while I was transported straight to Flinty Red circa 2010 with the Hereford beef onglet (£14.90), served with haricot beans, tomato frito and red wine jus.

Cannellini beans, lemon beurre blanc, smoked caviar

Hereford beef onglet, haricot beans, tomato frito, red wine jus

Mushrooms on brioche, Armagnac, shallot, hazelnut

If you have time for cheese, then gorge with no fear of gout from a selection provided by COR’s near neighbours and fellow 2022 newbie, North Street Cheese Co.

Chocoholics will find solace in three out of the four dessert options with the chocolate truffles (£4) coming with sea salt and the additional option of blue cheese – something which Zara’s Chocolates also just down the road also does well.

‘Cor’ has a number of meanings from its Latin root word, and it is easy to praise this corking new restaurant full of cordiality which has been opened with great courage by Mark and Karen in what are incredibly tough times for everyone in the hospitality industry.

It’s a very special sort of restaurant that can immediately enter among the top tier of restaurants in a city still revered nationwide for our food and drink scene. Expect word of COR to soon spread far beyond Bristol.

COR is the best new Bristol restaurant of 2022

COR, 81 North Street, Bedminster, Bristol, BS3 1ES
www.correstaurant.com

All photos: Martin Booth

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