BSB Whiteladies, Clifton, Bristol

A long established Bristol landmark at the lower end of the Whiteladies Road strip, this has been closed for some months and recent re-opened following a refurbishment. The layout is pretty much unchanged and consists of a open bar downstairs with some raised seating to one side, and a restaurant / cocktail lounge upstairs. In it's former life this offered a decent enough selection of Creole type food, but on a recent Friday evening visit this was closed and roped off. What the future plans for this are, I'm not sure. Decor wise it's fairly unremarkable and didn't offer the stylish and plush interior that one might expect in a cocktail bar. The entire front wall of the pub is made up of windows that look as though they could be folded back in the warmer weather and there are also good sized windows on the side wall, but in spite of this the atmosphere inside was slightly gloomy, perhaps due to the low lighting and dark brown paintwork. The back drop to the bar was an attractive pale grey slate, and the bar counter itself was also clad with slate. Large copper dome lamps hung above the bar. The cocktail menu was extensive as one would expect, but was somewhat let down in it's execution. Mrs. B's "Jacuzzi" was pleasant enough but somewhat lacking in visual embellishments. It was served in a plain champagne flute with nothing other than the drink - no fruit, sugar coating, umbrella's, etc. Whilst you could argue that these are superfluous to the drink itself, for something that cost the best part of £9 I expected a little more. Similarly my "Screaming Orgasm" was presented to me without the advertised cream topping, cocktail cherry or chocolate dusting. No mention or apology was made in regard to this. I queried it, and was told that they thought they had run out of these. After some searching around, an aerosol can of cream was produced, I was informed that they had definitely run out of cherries, and no mention was made of the chocolate dusting. No deduction was made from the bill for these missing ingredients. Not good at all. How can a cocktail bar run out of cocktail cherries? It's like a chip shop running out of potatoes. And there is a Sainsbury's about five minutes walk away, I'm sure they sell them. Unfortunately there were no beers or ciders on tap at the bar, just a couple of continental lagers. All in all, this was a big disappointment. In their defence, I'm not sure how long they have been open. One guy looked to be still clearing away rubbish from one corner of the room, so maybe not long and these are just teething problems. But even if that were the case, there's still no excuse for trying to hoodwink a punter in to paying full price for something that's got half it's ingredients missing.