A new restaurant coming to south Bristol will see a completely different cuisine served every few weeks. Wine bar Kask of North Street is launching the experimental restaurant concept in September in a space just a few doors down from the bar.
Kitchen by Kask will see some of the best street traders in Bristol take residency in the space on North Street. Kask owner Charlie Taylor said his team will curate an affordable drinks pairing for every dish while running front of house.
Bristol has a competitive food scene which means customers tend to crave new dining experiences instead of returning to the same venue each month. Kitchen will hope to entice people back to their relaxed dining setting more regularly to experience new foods and sip quality wines, beers and cocktails.
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Kask - which has more than 200 drinks in its cellar - opened just nine months before the pandemic initially as a wine bar and delicatessen, although they quickly dropped the deli items in part due to competition in the area. It survived numerous lockdowns with a loyal customer base and by offering an expertly curated wine list paired with charcuterie - but the customers' appetite grew for something more beyond their current cheese pairings.
Charlie said: "We always thought if a space came up on North Street that we would grab it and look at doing a restaurant. There are some great indies on North Street, but our end, the East Street end, we just felt there was space for one or two more venues."
The wine bar has been testing the concept through food pop-ups recently but they are very limited to what they can offer with no real kitchen. Charlie and his team are opening in the former Nordic Cafe that closed after the pandemic, a space with a cover of up to 34. The garden, which is due to be ready in spring next year, will seat another 30 diners.
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"We have quite a lot of friends who are street food traders who do the markets in Bristol. We have an amazing street food culture and in talking to them, there is a barrier between doing street food and moving to a restaurant, if that's what they want to do," he added.
Kitchen will allow street food traders to test the restaurant experience before without committing long term, which can be a costly venture, particularly in the current economy. It also provides a space for chefs to trial new dishes and experiment with their existing menus.
The space will also allow the experts at Kask to experiment with drinks pairings, which often cost a premium price in some of the more fine dining restaurants. "The tasting pairing option isn't going to cost more than if you're just buying a normal drink," Charlie explained. "We want people to keep coming back, so the price is important to us."
The restaurant has programmed the residencies of traders and chefs all the way until Christmas. Charlie remained tight-lipped on who will be featured but has promised some of the bigger names in the city's street food scene, including Malaysian, Persian and vegan comfort food.
It is also the new home of the Mazi Project, an initiative that connects disadvantaged young people to Bristol’s rich food culture, which has already started operating out of the kitchen at the start of each week when the space won't be used as a restaurant. They were working from Pony Bistro on the other side of North Street, which has recently announced it will be closing for good.
While there is a strong vision for Kitchen by Kask, Charlie admits the concept may evolve into something completely new by Christmas and that customers dictate what the business becomes. "We've learnt that business survival is all about being flexible, reacting quickly and having a strong concept and belief in what will work and being prepared to adapt. We only survived throughout lockdowns by adapting what we did."
Kitchen by Kask will be opening on Friday, September 9 at 36 North Street in Bedminster. Opening hours will be varied.
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