The Metropolitan, Whiteladies Road: ‘A great place to start the day but not to end it’ – restaurant review

With much fanfare, the Metropolitan has opened serving breakfast, lunch and “Asian inspired small plates” for dinner.

It certainly feels very metropolitan, aside from the fact that instead of admiring a staggering skyline out of the floor to ceiling windows you can actually very conveniently watch the television screens in Richer Sounds on the other side of Whiteladies Road.

It’s a beautiful space featuring all the bells, whistles and Instagram-friendly interiors.

Pride and care have been applied liberally here and the staff are very attentive, but then again I do seem to be the first customer of the day.

An oat milk latte (£3.70) is swiftly delivered but after perusing the menu and ordering the ox cheek hash (£12), I start to feel sorry for the staff.

The coffee was the first indication that breakfast would be good.

We’re being looked in on by a trio of builders, who were meant to turn up last week but have only just appeared and the team here are clearly mortified. It can’t be helping draw in the passing traffic either.

That said, it’s not detracting from the experience at all, which so far has been one of utter calm and sophistication despite intermittent icy blasts from the door that doesn’t seem to be behaving itself and the occasional background drill.

The ox cheek hash is the first breakfast I have eaten in a long time that has elicited a genuine phwoar response. It’s creative, pushing the boundaries of breakfast while still teasing the sensibilities of the genre.

It’s crème-brûlée crack-worthy crispy on the outside yet the ox is tender, the eggs are perfect and the combination – the pickles, the gravy, the sauce – are a lesson to all in balance and harmony.

But I can’t help but feel I’ve seen this breakfast before and further research sheds light on the matter: the head chef at the Metropolitan (or the Met as Bristol’s self-declared social media influencers are already calling it) is Adam Armstrong, who worked for Jamaica Street Stores before they sadly closed in July. Instagram scrolling reveals an almost identical brunch item was served there too.

It’s no wonder it’s good; Adam has quite literally done this before. My only suggestion is that if the staff detect a northern accent in a customer they should up the gravy ration. Every breakfast could be made better with a jug of gravy.

The ox cheek hash; if only all days started like this.

I’m starting to feel sorry for the builders outside now rather than the staff. They have to watch plates like this ox cheek hash being served just the other side of the window.

Over the course of the hash I’ve been joined by a few other brunchers, and as I step out back into the cold I leave behind many appreciative murmurs of a damn good breakfast.

A strong start for the Metropolitan it must be said, but I shall refrain from judgement just yet as I also have a table booked for this evening.

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Read more: 15 historic photos of Whiteladies Road 

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The sun goes down over BS8 and I’m back at the Metropolitan for dinner. On instructions from my Editor, my original plan was an all-day stakeout but I thought this might have been a bit too expensive. With breakfast as good as it was, I could probably have eaten three before midday.

The evening menu is small plates – something that is becoming somewhat ubiquitous. I do actually very much like small plates; I like being able to try a range of dishes but they really are everywhere now.

This time I have a friend with me, so my dining companion and I order smoked Jerusalem artichoke tempura (£6), char siu BBQ pork belly (£9), uchiki kuri squash massaman curry (£7), cured Cornish sea trout (£10) and king oyster mushrooms (£8).

The cured trout is pleasant, clearly well-sourced and a textural triumph, although any cured fish flavour is overpowered instantly by soy and ginger. Texture over taste seems a recurring theme throughout the night, telling a very different story to this morning.

The cured trout is texturally impressive but the taste was almost completely lost.

The massaman curry is a plate of pure confusion. It tastes like it has spent a few weeks in a smokehouse.

It’s certainly not screaming Asian-inspired, in fact I don’t think it is inspired at all. Unless inspiration for Thai curries is to be found at the bottom of a packet of cigarettes rather than the fresh herb counter.

This massaman curry couldn’t be further from the ones I’ve had in Thailand

Meanwhile, the tempura artichoke is almost good but the vegetable itself, concealed in a slightly too oily batter, is overcooked.

Any smoke that was meant to be in this dish has jumped ship and clearly made its way into the ‘curry’ instead.

Artichoke is one of the best vegetables there is. This didn’t quite do it justice.

The mushrooms are forgettable. Slices that are too big sit atop a mushroom ketchup leaving you chewing just a bit too long.

The pork tastes like it’s been forgotten in the oven and an attempted rescue has been made with a bottle of supermarket barbecue sauce.

What is phenomenal, however, is the crackling. Again, they have almost nailed the texture at the expense of the taste.

The mushrooms were almost good but missed the mark slightly.

The team at the Metroplitan need to sort out their front door. What was a charming quirk this morning is now a regular glacial tap on the shoulder, with the customers nearest taking it in turns to get up and shut it after people leave or enter without closing it behind them.

The chocolate delice that we order for dessert (£7) looks like it’s been dropped or spooned straight out of a tub of Betty Crocker and tastes like it too.

The miso ice cream is sensational and should be celebrated as a dessert in itself. Everything else on the plate detracts from it. But the concoction still needs an injection of acidity; tart raspberries perhaps. The barley they serve it with to replicate the chocolate delice crunch is stale and gets stuck in my teeth.

A pile of Betty Crocker icing, anyone?

As I leave the Metropolitan for the second time in the last eight hours, I reflect that this is a great place to start the day but there are better places to end it, particularly if you’re looking for small plates.

The lunch menu seems to combine breakfast and dinner options, which would lead me to believe it stands somewhere in the middle of a graph where the X (quality) and Y (time of day) axes have a very strong correlation.

I’ll be back for the ox cheek hash. With more gravy next time.

The Metropolitan, 72 Whiteladies Road, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 2QA
www.metropolitanbristol.com

All photos: Meg Houghton-Gilmour

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