Restaurants / Park Street
Transylvania – restaurant review
A bowl of pork scratchings and chopped onions served unannounced as a starter was only one sign that the newly opened Transylvania on Park Street is not your average restaurant.
Inside, it’s dark enough to have to squint to read the menu with thudding and repetitive Euro dance on the stereo that makes you have to raise your voice while ordering.
Framed paintings on one wall feature ladies with skin as white as snow, and fanged vampire teeth framed by ruby red lips.
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Up the stairs and behind a glass case in the restaurant – most recently Attix bar – are shrouded figures that look like they have come from the ghost house at a fun fair.
To complete the theme, flickering (fake) candles are everywhere: hanging from the ceilings in chandeliers and in candelabra on the tables.
In the spirit of Dracula, Transylvania’s most famous son, it’s advised to come here with a taste for meat.
A Transylvanian mixed grill (pork scratchings and onions can be seen top-right)
From a cold starter with sausage, pork chops, bacon and crackling (£19.90 for two to share), through to the five different hot pots (from £12.95 to £14.95) featuring beef rump stew, chicken liver, lamb and more, Romanian cuisine is not for veggies.
If this meat overload is not for you, however, then fear not. There is also a section of the menu with Italian dishes including pasta, risotto and fish.
But when in Transylvania etc, so on a recent Thursday evening a Transylvanian mixed grill (£19.95 for two to share) followed the surprising appearance of the pork scratchings and onions.
As a mark of respect to the animals used in this dish, it was probably for the best that the lights were down low.
By sight, the grilled butterfly chicken breast was indistinguishable from the grilled pork chop. Once cut up, the difference was only slightly more clear, with the chicken just a bit less chewy.
The best thing on the plate was the mititei, a typically Romanian blend of meat and spices formed into a small log and then grilled. The other sausage on the plate was more like a cheap frankfurter, but at least the mashed potato was lovely and creamy.
Papanași is a typical Romanian dessert
Despite only being listed by the bottle for £19 on the menu, our Romanian waitress was able to pour a glass of the fruity Craita Transilvaniei, a red wine rather like a Riesling.
This was perfect for washing down the papanași (£4.75) – a sphere of donut-like pastry topped with another small donut and then slathered in chocolate sauce.
Arriving in a Bristol restaurant scene that has been criticised for being too bland, Transylvania really is unique and in bringing something completely different to the city it should be applauded.
Transylvania, 44 Park Street, Bristol, BS1 5JG
07427 597 647
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