A small independent restaurant in Bristol has received rave reviews from two national food critics in the space of a few days. Caper & Cure on Stokes Croft was first praised by Tim Hayward in the Financial Times and a few days later picked up another glowing review from Sunday Times critic Marina O’Loughlin.
Under the headline ‘A bijou nouveau bistro where the kitchen thinks big’, O’Loughlin waxed lyrical about her meal at the restaurant run by actor Giles Coram and chef Craig Summers. The influential critic whose photograph has never been published, described Caper & Cure as being ‘a handful of tables on the ground floor and basement in Bristol’s rackety Stokes Croft’.
She heaped particular praise on her main course of turbot with peas, broad beans, crab sauce, herb gnocchi. “If I had to define the place in one word, it would be generosity,” said O’Loughlin who explained to readers that the ‘treasure’ of a restaurant is ‘in Stokes Croft and not chichi Clifton’.
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The Sunday Times review came just days after Caper & Cure appeared on the pages of the Financial Times. Bristol-born critic Tim Hayward loved his meal as much as his opposite number on The Sunday Times.
Hayward couldn’t get enough of his lamb sweetbreads starter. The offal had been cooked in butter, which the appreciative critic said ‘delight my heart as surely as they congest it’.
He was also clearly impressed by the Greek wine he ordered. The Malagouzia and Assyrtiko blend from Apostolos Thymiopoulos resulted in the award-winning writer claiming “I would have drunk it until they dragged out my senseless carcass and threw it into the gutters of Stokes Croft, weeping soft tears of joy while society broke down and collapsed about my ears.”
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Clearly wowed by his evening at the small Stokes Croft restaurant, Hayward wrapped up his review by saying: “When Armageddon comes, I want to be in Bristol. A place where, as civilisation crumbles, they’ll spend their last fiat currency on the best bottle of wine they can afford.”
Caper & Cure opened in 2019 in the Old Chemist building next to the Carriageworks on Stokes Croft. The two co-owners previously worked at the now-closed Wallfish Bistro in Clifton Village.
You can read the original Sunday Times review here
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