Review: Bell’s Diner, Bristol

Bell’s Diner is a Bristol institution, it’s been there since 1976. And although it’s an entirely different team and a totally different menu these days, Bell’s is still 100% a neighbourhood bistro serving straight-forward dishes with continental inspiration. Maybe just leaning a bit more on Spain than France these days, most of the plates being tapas size and the inspiration coming from all around the Med.

It’s cosy and eclectic within. The place wears its age proudly, the edges of the original woodwork softened by innumerable coats of paint. Drink menus come bound between the covers of classic 70’s albums. That sorta thing. You can’t not feel relaxed here. So we just ordered a mixture of half-a-dozen plates and waited to see what came.

Padron peppers were good, obviously. And then we were served two nice big ox cheek croquettes, which really set the bar. Wow. Meltingly soft shreds of insanely beefy cheek in a sticky gravy hidden in a perfect ball of crunchy breadcrumb. I’ll take ten! Oh. Except then a neat skewer of four duck hearts appears, and these little chaps have been grilled to perfection; smoke-kissed taste on the outside, lovely rose pink softness within. I’ll take ten of those too!

Next up was a generous plate of lightly dressed tomatoes with locally made ricotta and pangritata, beautiful combo although if I’m picky the toms were still a bit cold. Oh! Mustn’t forget their bread – a lovely twangy sourdough with the most amazing crisp and blackened crust on ‘im. There’s a lot of star-studded restaurants couldn’t turn out bread this good.

The one slightly bum dish was a beetroot salad with cashel blue beignets. These little nuggets were jolly good. But the salt-baked beetroot had taken on just a leeeetle too much salt in the process. Any grumbles were cast aside by our final dish, a roasted piece of salt cod with a stew of borlotti beans and sweet pepper. The cod was perfect, the beans were fat, and the peppers had been cooked down into a stewy sauce that was nothing short of jammy in its sweet stickiness. The pairing of the salt cod and jammy stew: abject bliss.

Didn’t have room for pud, which sounded a shame based on the noises from nearby tables. Best of all, the bill came down to about £17 each without drinks (and a couple of jolly good glasses of wine for very little). Bell’s Diner is the absolute epitome of local bistro: great price, great food, relaxed surroundings, and a menu that rotates enough that you could visit monthly and never get bored.