Spoke & Stringer, Clifton, Bristol

A recent opening on the popular Whiteladies Road strip, this is a sibling restaurant to the longer established outlet on the harbour side, and occupies a site that was until recently, the Happy Bird fried chicken outlet I believe. Internally it’s a fairly compact space, and somewhat stark and industrial in style. The walls were all plain whitewash, whilst the ceiling was battleship grey and there was a similar colour screed floor. A number of pot plants were on shelving or suspended from the cable trays which was perhaps designed to soften the décor somewhat. Full height windows at the front let in plenty of light, and this was supplemented by exposed filament light bulbs, which are of course de rigour in any pub renovation these days. Seating was a mixture of high wooden bench tables with stools, and some padded green bench seating to the right. Their harbour side outlet has an adjacent shop unit, and whilst that’s not the case here, there was nonetheless a rack of tee shirts for sale, and bicycle suspended from the ceiling and a paddle board affixed to the wall. A tempting looking selection of cakes was in a display case on the counter, suggesting that this operates as much as a coffee shop as a bar. Unfortunately there were no real ales on tap, just Shed Head IPA on keg. Even worse, there was no draught cider, although they did at least have Cotswold Cider’s No Brainer in bottles which went down very well. Overall, there’s nothing really wrong with this place, but if I were going to return it would be more likely for a coffee and cake than a beer.