Restaurants
The Hide, Bristol Zoo – restaurant review
Surrounding what is now the penguin enclosure at Bristol Zoo is a tall white wall which once housed the zoo’s polar bears. Opened in 1935, it was designed at a time known as the ‘disinfectant era’, when enclosures were designed specifically to make cleaning as easy as possible and not necessarily to meet with animals’ needs.
Nearby, the zoo’s new restaurant occupies the site of the old one, but apart from its shape there are few clues as to what was here before the opening of The Hide – a restaurant which zoo bosses promise to be “a truly unique and stress-free dining experience with the added luxury of table service”.
Stress-free was not quite the theme on Monday lunchtime, however, with a lot of disgruntled customers at the entrance to the restaurant at 12.15pm when told they would have to return in an hour for a table, despite dozens of empty seats able to be glimpsed inside the 300-capacity dining room.
is needed now More than ever
It’s like La Rocca nightclub on the Triangle, which always keeps a queue outside the door even when there are barely any punters inside. Except here at Bristol Zoo, there are families with hungry children who need to be fed.
The Hide restaurant has a capacity of 300 diners
Of course, this is a zoo not a fine dining restaurant but the changes have been met with almost universal disapproval on the zoo’s Facebook page which announced the opening of the new restaurant, being branded an “epic fail” and “bitterly disappointing” among dozens of critical comments.
It’s a situation that will have to be sorted very quickly, especially since the school lunch style of serving seemed to be working fine in the former Coral Cafe. Despite there being three different queues, parents in a hurry could quickly get in and out – which is usually want you want at a visitor attraction such as the zoo.
The much-criticised table service at The Hide is not particularly efficient service either. We had to ask three times for a jug of water, children’s starters of hummus with carrot and cucumber slices failed to arrive, and then we were overcharged.
“Your dining experience will be truly fun and interactive” goes the blurb.
Augmented reality screens that transform you into a monkey, tiger or a sloth are right by the entrance and caused much hilarity, but binoculars for younger visitors to look around the restaurant and see animals moving around never appeared, and a promise that guests can choose to sit in one of five “informal and relaxed” zones (hide, horizon, canopy, undergrowth and marine) cannot come true when all diners are led to their table when arriving.
The hummus was unsurprisingly untouched by the two- and six-year-olds on our table, but they both enjoyed their margherita pizzas from the £5.95 children’s lunch menu, despite being no larger than an adult’s hand.
A selection of the food on offer at The Hide
For adults, there are salads, pizza, and a ‘beasts and fish section’ including a burger for £9.95, sausages and mash for £8.55, and fish and chips for £8.95.
Despite an ‘omnivore’ sharing board, vegetarians are poorly catered for. Just think what a statement an animal conservation charity could make if they introduced a predominantly veggie menu in their new restaurant.
Bowls from the ‘grazing’ section cost from £2.95 for the olives to £4.55 for the spicy buffalo wings and sausages, both of which arrived at the table warm rather than hot.
The cumin-roasted aubergine wedges with toasted seeds was a glimpse of at least a bit of flair in the kitchen that used to dish out plates of chips and beans.
It’s a bold move by Bristol Zoo to move their new restaurant so far away from something that used to be nothing special but did exactly what it needed to do for guests in a hurry.
Table service should be found at restaurants in nearby Clifton Village, not at not what is the only choice of restaurant at Bristol Zoo. Major changes will have to be made quickly and angry guests listened to so walls like those surrounding the polar bears are not erected around The Hide by people refusing to come inside.
The Hide, Bristol Zoo Gardens, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 3HA
0117 428 5300
www.bristolzoo.org.uk/visitor-information/food-and-drink
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