Restaurants / Reviews
Flipside, Whiteladies Road: ‘The very definition of a hidden gem’ – restaurant review
So often in bars and pubs that specialise in good drinks, food is an afterthought. You barely have to glance at the menu to hear the ping of the microwave in the back, with beige menus hurriedly put together with a focus on stodge to soak up the booze.
Flipside, true to its name, turns this preconception on its head.
There have been various food pop-ups and kitchen residents at Flipside on Whiteladies Road since they first started shaking cocktails in 2015. Their dimly lit booths have seen everything from breakfast baps to barbecue and yet despite these many evolutions they’ve never quite made a dent in the food scene.
is needed now More than ever
Now with Michelin-trained chef Sebastian Merry (previously head chef at the Cloak and Dagger) at the wheel, perhaps Flipside can finally become a destination for dinner as well as drinks.
Flipside has subtly different menus depending on where, and when, you are sat. Downstairs at the bar, the focus is on smaller snacks and the mezzanine is where the bigger of the small plates are served. On Sundays, Seb makes his infamous roasts which put him firmly on the Bristol food scene during lockdown.
On a recent evening, we sat on the mezzanine, which had more the feeling of an exclusive members club than a restaurant, with its high sided leather armchairs.
It does feel like you’re eating in a cocktail bar rather than a restaurant, but it’s cosy and invites you to linger and take your time – photo: Meg Houghton-Gilmour
To start, nori crackers with baba ganoush (£4.50) and sourdough with crack butter (£4.50).
At first glance the nori crackers looked like Doritos that have spent far too long in the fryer, but all comparisons to overcooked crisps soon vanished. This was a stellar tribute to the bedrock of picnics – crisps and dip. The salty crunch of the nori crackers combined with the umami creaminess of the baba ghanoush made for a mouth-watering beginning.
A very moreish, if slightly oily, way to start the meal – photo: Meg Houghton-Gilmour
After tasting it, the name ‘crack butter’ made perfect sense – the stuff was class A and absolutely addictive.
The butter was incredibly smooth, with notes of salted caramel. It blurred the lines between savoury and sweet, mocking us for ever thinking we could define a flavour binary in the first place.
It would work just as well in a banoffee pie as it does on sourdough. If this was sold in shops, I would buy it by the gallon. All other butters bow down to this butter. This is the pinnacle, the Everest, the heavyweight world champion olympic-reigning monarch of butter.
The bread, sadly, didn’t quite do the butter justice. The ratio of crust to chewy centre of sourdough was too high. It’s not bad, but had they served it with thick slices of bubbles from Harts or Farro, they would’ve earned themselves a standing ovation.
Burrata, like small plates, seems to be the hit thing to have on a menu at the moment. And who can resist a cheese that bursts to reveal an oozing liquid centre? At Flipside, the burrata is infused with kimchi and served with sweet, pickled cucumbers (£9). The flavours of kimchi had been injected into the heart of burrata, which wasn’t nearly as oozy as some other specimens I’ve come across. The sharpness that cut through the creamy cheese was most welcome but left me longing for the crunch of actual kimchi, which never manifested. The pickled cucumbers almost filled the void, but not quite.
This was certainly an inventive approach to burrata – photo: Meg Houghton-Gilmour
My favourite of the small plates was undoubtedly the pickled veg, rice paper, smoked mushroom and truffle mayonnaise (£9).
This was the first dish in a while that has genuinely stopped me in my tracks. What it lacked in looks it more than made up for in flavour. Pure creativity shone through the textural and flavour pairings and the smooth truffle mayonnaise provided the stage for sharp and sweet pickled vegetables with depth and umami from the smoked mushrooms. All brought together by the surprisingly delicious mouthful of rice paper.
This was the kind of combination that speaks of genuine artistry. I can’t stop thinking about it, this kind of originality is a rare find. I sincerely hope that Seb continues down this road of throwing the rulebook so spectacularly out of the window.
Covering a dish in rice paper doesn’t do much for the aesthetics but the textures were sensational – photo: Meg Houghton-Gilmour
Finally, rabbit ravioli, sweetcorn, tarragon (£14). Much easier on the eye than its predecessor; five golden discs piled atop a sweetcorn puree and bathed in a dark jus. The gamey flavour of the rabbit is subtle but it’s an incredibly well-balanced dish and the sweetcorn is a delight. I feel sweetcorn is an ingredient that has somewhat fallen out of favour of late, which is a great shame. It brought on a bit of a ratatouille moment, transporting me back to the noisiness of my childhood dinners, of which sweetcorn was a regular feature.
A mountain of pure joy – photo: Roddy Skinner
After such a sensational series of small plates, we had to try dessert. Sweet, pickled autumn fruits, custard, lavender honeycomb (£9) were unfathomably light and well considered. The only slight disappointment was the bitterness of the honeycomb, suggesting it had spent a little too long on the hob.
Once again blurring the boundaries between savoury and sweet, the fresh basil complemented the slightly effervescent pickled fruits hiding beneath the custard – photo: Roddy Skinner
Providing he can nail the consistency, Seb has created the very definition of a hidden gem. Sat on the mezzanine peering over the bar, one of only two tables with occupants, it did feel like we’d been let in on a really juicy secret.
Just like the best cocktails, the food here has achieved balance, joyful synchronicity. It makes your eyes light up. The cocktails were exceptionally good too.
It could be an uphill battle to get it known on the food scene. Will Seb’s cooking be able to go beyond just being the surprisingly good food offering at one of Bristol’s many, many cocktail bars? I hope so.
Flipside, 109 Whiteladies Road, BS8 2PB
Main photo: Roddy Skinner
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