St John's Court, Whiteladies Road, Bristol, BS8 2QY
https://www.rivercottage.net/canteens/bristol/
We visited River Cottage Canteen on a Sunday with my Niece. Booking was easily done over the internet and our table was ready when we arrived. River Cottage is situated in St John's Court Hall which is a Grade-II listed 19th Century church building at the Blackboy Hill end of Whiteladies Road. The building itself is modern and airy with an open kitchen and more seating upstairs. We were sat next to the open kitchen meaning we could watch the chefs in action. We had the fish chef next to us cooking in a huge real fire oven which was a real treat to watch.
We were all in roast dinner mode when we arrived and decided to kick off with the sharing meat board and the cauliflower pakoras. The cauliflower pakoras were fantastic, crisp, tasty and sadly put the sharing meat board to shame. We all had the roast lamb for main which was lovely. The lamb was rolled and a little fatty so it took some time to eat, but was tasty. We asked for extra gravy which was provided swiftly. Service was a little hit and miss. Everyone seemed to be very busy doing not a lot and catching their attention was hard. However, when you had the attention of the staff they were great and nothing was too much trouble. There was no rush to take your money as is normally the case in places where you are left to digest, debate and somehow summon up the energy to move again.
I finished off my meal with the peanut butter and salted caramel ice cream which was gorgeous. My niece was not overly impressed with her cheesecake, perhaps finding the red wine taste a little too much to bear.
River Cottage is a nice place to eat and I can see it will be popular with the older generation for family gatherings. It certainly had that sort of feel about it, my Nan would love it. I feel it trades on the name a little, it's not a cheap place to eat ~ £30/head for 3 courses and we were left in that awkward place of feeling like it was an adequate feed, but feeling a little shortchanged and underwhelmed without really being able to put a finger on why.
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