Restaurants / Reviews
Dubthai
Tracey Lee worked in event catering in Bristol and further afield before opening a restaurant even more further afield in Thailand.
On her return to the city, she has decided to mix Thai food with Caribbean food, the result of which is Dubthai on the Christmas Steps.
The menu changes daily in a restaurant with an art gallery and function room on the floor above, but you can expect beef panang and chicken massaman curries alongside jerk chicken and curry goat.
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Lee heads to the market early each day and puts things on the menu based on what she buys.
Dubthai feels more like a supper club than a restaurant, with only 14 foldaway wooden and plastic seats arranged around colourful chequerboard tables – each with a candle within an intricate metal frame.
Two friends were catching up on the table by the concave window early on Monday evening when I visited, comparing their first tentative steps up the media career ladder.
Two other young friends then wandered in, asking for apple crumble but getting a chocolate brownie as Lee had forgotten to change the writing on the A-board outside.
Also forgotten was the music until about halfway through my meal, reggae – or at least a heavy bass line – then permeating through the same serving hatch that provides most of the light.
The homely but ramshackle nature of Dubthai reminded me of A Cozinha in Kingsdown when owner Ian MacFarlane was also chef, waiter, sommelier and washer-upper, sometimes lighting the candles on each table and not one customer arriving.
The atmosphere at Dubthai is homely and the food is too. My chicken massaman curry with tender chicken breast cooked with coconut curry and lemon grass, sweet potato, green beans and peanuts was only £5 but it was nothing better than what an accomplished cook could make at home.
Bizarrely, with Bristol Cider Shop just a few yards down the road, the two choices of ciders were Thatchers Gold or Natch in cans. A terribly wasted opportunity in a restaurant still finding its multicultural feet.
Dubthai, 14 Christmas Steps, Bristol, BS1 5BS
07598 945274
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