
News / Bristol
Bristol named as Britain’s coolest city
Rough Guides have already voted Bristol the top UK city of 2017 and their love for our city continues with their latest accolade.
‘Why Bristol is the coolest city in Britain’ is the headline of an article featuring among other examples of coolness, the treehouse on a crane outside the M Shed, Wapping Wharf, cycling, graffiti and hot air balloons.
“The city’s first-rate nightlife, thriving creative and tech industries and proximity to the great outdoors made it an obvious choice,” writes the Rough Guides’ Greg Dickinson.
is needed now More than ever
“Think London, but smaller and (dare we say it) cooler – or at least more committed to its offbeat counterculture, and with an enormous gorge cutting an improbable chunk through part of the city.”
Okay, it’s nothing that we haven’t read in national magazines and newspapers before.
What is refreshing to see this time, however, is a look at some of Bristol’s newer places to stay and businesses to visit.
Rough Guides recommends the retro Rocket caravans on top of Brooks Guesthouse overlooking St Nick’s Market, Pickle cafe in Underfall Yard, Bristol Tandem Hire, Chicken Shed, Pigsty, Woky Ko, Box-E, Salt & Malt and Bristol Cider Shop.
Across the pond, Bristol is also making waves – with Paco Tapas reviewed in Sunday’s New York Times.
Writer Ratha Tep describes chef-patron Paco Sanchez-Iglesias’ and head chef Dave Hazell’s two-day process to make mayonnaise: “The luscious, tangy result is indicative of the kind of culinary rigor and experimentation expected of Mr. Sanchez-Iglesias, who earned his first Michelin star at 23.”

Paco Tapas is next door o Casamia and Pi Shop overlooking Bathurst Basin
She adds: “At Casamia, the modernist British restaurant where Mr. Sanchez-Iglesias and his brother, Jonray, made their reputations, experimentation might take the form of foams, liquid nitrogen and other sorts of kitchen wizardry.
“At Paco Tapas, near the Bristol Harbor, it manifests in nontraditional choices like the type of egg (from a Khaki Campbell duck, with an extra yolk added) used to make its tortilla española, with its decadently rich, golden interior.
“They are coloring within the lines but defining what makes color.”
Main photo courtesy of www.brooksguesthousebristol.com