Restaurants / Reviews
Plead the Fifth
It’s spot the American cliches in Plead the Fifth. Subtle this new restaurant on Park Row is not, but then nor are our cousins from over the pond.
It starts even before you walk in, with two US flags fluttering outside. The red, white and blue colour scheme continues on the walls and chairs.
Friends plays on a continuous loop on a flat screen television. There are framed photographs of famous faces from Captain America to Barack Obama. There is even a large copy of the US constitution – a nod to the restaurant’s moniker.
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So there’s no doubting the theme then in a building that for more than a quarter of a century used to be family-run Italian trattoria Mamma Mia.
One welcome American import here is the service. Our waitress Jazz was not overly attentive but completely charming. By the end of our meal she was playing hide-and-seek with my three-year-old daughter, who was so besotted that the next morning she asked me if we could go and see the nice lady again.
She wasn’t so impressed with her food, however. Her slider-size burger was rather dry and accompanied by slightly-burned chips – but the bun got her seal of approval, on top of which was a miniature stars and stripes flag, of course.
My Philly cheese steak sandwich was better, featuring a particularly sizeable and juicy slab of meat for £6 in the lunchtime offer. It also came with rocket leaves that had been liberally slathered in butter.
Other food options include starters of buffalo chicken wings, crab cakes and potato skins; “stuffed burgers” all cooked medium rare; other mains of ribs, potato pie, country-fried steak and “soda pop pork chops”; with desserts of apple pie, key lime pie, double chocolate chop cookies and cheesecake.
If you don’t go for the good value lunchtime deal, it’s two courses for £18.95 or three for £23.95.
Drinks include Sierra Nevada, Samuel Adams from Massachusetts and Blue Moon from Colorado, with Aviator cider from, er, Chipping Sodbury – the only hint when stepping into Plead the Fifth that you’re in Bristol not Brooklyn – or at least what someone from Bristol thinks Brooklyn looks like.
Plead the Fifth, 10a Park Row Bristol, BS1 5LJ
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