Restaurants / Reviews
Wallfish & Wellbourne Bistro – restaurant review
“How are you settling in?” an old Wallfish regular asked Liberty Wenham as he arrived for lunch on a recent Thursday.
At the beginning of this month, Liberty and her partner Seldon Curry were both at Wallfish on Princess Victoria Street, a restaurant that they had been running together for five years.
But the pair now find themselves at Wellbourne – just a few hundred yards away on The Mall – after these two Clifton Village restaurants decided to join forces.
is needed now More than ever
It’s an unusual move (perhaps even unique in Bristol) and only time will tell whether it’s a success. For now, it’s still the honeymoon period for this marriage of convenience; with Ross Gibbens and Michael Kennedy of Wellbourne somehow also managing to run two other restaurants, in White City in London and in a ski resort in the Spanish Pyrenees.
“I feel right at home,” Liberty replied to her old and now hopefully new regular. “Everything is the same.”
Except it’s not. Wellbourne is currently the only name above the door, but at the top of the menu there is a logo for Wallfish & Wellbourne Bistro, the new name for this bold venture for two restaurants that both might have closed if not for this last throw of the dice.
Salt & pepper squid and rapeseed mayonnaise
Wellbourne’s vol au vents have been joined by Wallfish’s oysters; and Wellbourne’s splendid wine selection has been joined by Wallfish’s glug-glug-glugging fish water jug.
From a selection of smaller dishes including those vol au vents, Porthilly rock oysters (£3 each) and French onion soup (£8.50), salt and pepper squid (£6) came out of the kitchen piping hot, crunchy on the outside and served with a more than generous dollop of rapeseed mayonnaise.
The main courses here range from £15 to £21, and include a risotto of black truffle, aged parmesan and English sparkling wine (£15); grilled whole Cornish plaice, extra virgin olive oil and aged vinegar (£16); and hand-rolled linguine, shellfish sauce and red mullet (£21).
Bavette steak, triple-cooked chips and aioli
A 250g bavette steak (£15) was served with triple-cooked chips even more satisfyingly crunchy on the outside than the squid, with this time a pot of aioli to dip them into.
A sharp knife was most definitely needed for the steak, a classic French cut which was precisely cooked and served still dripping in its juices.
The only slightly disappointing part of a very good lunch was dessert, with some edible gold leaf plonked on top of the banoffee pie (£8) seemingly at random making it look like a Christmas tree decoration brought home from nursery by my four-year-old daughter.
Fortunately it was tastier than it looked. However, I was still disappointed in my pudding selection over the likes of slow cooked chocolate fondant (£8) or stewed heritage apple tarte tatin (£7.50).
Banoffee pie
This corner of Clifton Village is a microcosm of Bristol’s current restaurant scene.
Wellbourne and Wallfish’s new partnership represents the plucky independent, Côte next door is an example of a huge casual dining chain swallowing up passers-by, and a boarded-up restaurant (most recently the short-lived Iconic Steak House and previously the Royal Oak pub) sitting empty on the other side of the road.
Liberty and Seldon’s original plans were to sell Wallfish and move to Dorset to establish “a similar operation closer to the sea”, according to one interview from early this year.
Circumstances changed, however, and here they are, with Liberty slickly running the front of house and Seldon ensconced in the basement kitchen with the new set-up behind the stoves hidden from public view.
Somehow, once the settling in period is over, this coming together of restaurants may add up to being more than the sum of its parts.
Wallfish & Wellbourne Bistro, 25 The Mall, Clifton Village, Bristol, BS8 4JG
0117 239 0683
www.wellbourne.restaurant/clifton
Read more: When two Clifton restaurants become one
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