Restaurants / Reviews
Suncraft – restaurant review
James Koch, co-owner of the Gallimaufry, nips out of the bright yellow door in the colourful frontage of the bar’s new sister restaurant Suncraft, crossing the road to get back to the Galli.
Having businesses so close together makes it easy to keep an eye on them both, and suggests an intimate knowledge of the area in which his team have decided to base their new plant-based opening.
Stepping inside, it has a similar atmosphere to the well-established Galli. Calm and spacious, the decor is eclectic with bright yellow stools in the window under a plywood bar, and a wall of plants painted mint green butted up against herringbone pattern reclaimed wood decorated with a vintage Sun Ra Arkestra canvas.
is needed now More than ever
The interior of Suncraft is bright and eclectic with lots of natural materials
The menu is hand-written on chalk boards on one wall above tables made of recycled plastic yoghurt pots: Asian-inspired plant-based food is on offer, including a cold soba noodle and kimchi salad (£7) and a pumpkin, lentil and chickpea dhansak with basmati rice (£5.50).
On the table a menu run through the drinks options, including teas, wines, beer from St Werburgh’s brewery Wiper & True, and homemade cold-pressed juices in traffic light colours. Another piece of paper extols the health benefits of some of the more unusual ingredients served in the restaurant, from a rice that boosts one of your neurotransmitters to hemp juice rich in cannabinoids.
Orders are taken at the counter over the upbeat wail of saxophone-heavy jazz and the rumble of a blender in the open kitchen as the next batch of an extremely green smoothie gets whipped up. There’s an optional 20p donation for the Belu water, all of whose profits go to to WaterAid.
You fill your own carafe with still or sparkling water next to the hydroponic growing tower – thought to be the first in Bristol – where the team are growing herbs and leafy greens for their dishes.
The black eyed bean curry with spicy spinach and potato cakes
The warm, hearty dish of black eyed bean curry arrives promptly, accompanied by two chunky potato cakes nestling on top and a fresh salad of thinly-sliced red onion, fennel and mint (£6). The curry is so packed with beans that a spoon would stand up in it. More like a dhal than a curry, it is thick and filling, well spiced with a gentle heat and plenty of fresh herbs.
The fat potato cakes, full of peas and spinach, have also enjoyed a gentle touch from the spice rack, with a perfectly browned outer layer to break through with a fork. The whole thing is warming and autumnal and comforting.
This is food you might eat on a blanket balancing the bowl on your knees at a world music festival, or something your mum might make when you’re coming down with a cold, if your mum was a hippie who grew hydroponic herbs.
It is food that is vegan in a happily accidental way: enjoying all that is good about vegetables because of the way they can cheer you right up on a cold lunchtime.
Suncraft, 39 Gloucester Road, Bristol, BSB5 6QF
Read more:
Vertical farming at new Gloucester Road restaurant
‘It’s a conscious decision to do something completely different from the Gallimaufry’
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
