Restaurants / Reviews
Pigsty, Gloucester Road – restaurant review
The origin story of Pigsty – who have now opened their second restaurant on Gloucester Road, around four times as large as their original Cargo 1 home – reads like something out of a fairytale.
There were three brothers; a cabinet maker, a shipbroker and a rugby player. When one of the brothers, former Harlequins and Wales rugby player Olly, got injured, his wife bought him a sausage making machine.
The rest of the story involves selling sausages and bacon as The Jolly Hog and later opening Pigsty, an emporium of pork delights, at Wapping Wharf and now a expanded version of that on Gloucester Road which features a pair of old metal troughs from the farm where they source their meat repurposed as a shelf for water bottles and glasses, and some of Josh’s cabinet making equipment holding up a mirror in the toilets.
is needed now More than ever
On a recent Friday lunchtime soon after opening their doors for the first time, brothers Olly, Max and Josh Kohn were all in the restaurant – which behind the scenes also doubles up as Jolly Hog’s headquarters and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Pigsty’s own craft lager is on tap behind the bar here alongside selections from local breweries Wiper & True and Wild Beer, with cider from Hunts of Devon, and wine divided into three whites and three reds, as well as one prosecco and one rose.
Pigsty’s food is meant for sharing
This simplicity extends to the food menu, which will familiar to fans of the original Wapping Wharf restaurant but which also has new additions such as two different versions of sausage and mash, one meaty and one veggie.
The brothers and their business partner, Harlequins prop Will Collier, may be committed carnivores but Pigsty does more than just pay lip service to vegetarians.
Following months of development, the ‘pig shy’ scotch egg (£5) sees a soft boiled egg wrapped in wild mushrooms and Arborio rice – a tasty treat that in no way sees any diminishment from the original wrapped in Jolly Hog’s Proper Porker sausage meat.
Meanwhile, the Bristol sausage and mash (£12) is Pigsty’s version of the traditional Glamorgan sausage from Wales. Served with roasted garlic and kale mash and a cider sauce, these sausages are made with cheese, leeks and wholegrain mustard and were the quickest items to be gobbled down during our lunch.
This place is still a meat eaters’ paradise, however, from the delicious crackling sticks (two for £2) as starters and the bacon and onion jam (£1) among the condiments, to the monstrous pig board where for £40 you can enjoy most of the menu in one sitting.
To fully commit to the pork, we enjoyed a ‘whole hog’ (£9), a burger made up of sensational slow roast pork belly surrounded by cracking crackling served in a bouncy brioche bun with apple sauce and baconnaise.
In a quirk of timing, Pigsty opened their second restaurant just days after their Cargo 1 neighbours Woky Ko also opened a second home, with both businesses content to bide their time before it was the right moment to expand.
This fairytale still has plenty more chapters to write.
Pigsty, 79-81 Gloucester Road, Bishopston, Bristol, BS7 8AS
0117 403 1247
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
