Caper & Cure Bristol. What a delight.

Why bother with Trip Advisor if you have a viable alternative? If we know someone who lives in a strange area (strange to us that is) we'll always ask for a little recommendation. So it was this time, we were visiting our son at uni and an ex Alex superstar Becca steered us towards this little restaurant/cafe/coffee shop gaff in Stokes Croft, central Bristol, "it's a MUST visit she said", and how right she was. It was booked out, they squeezed us in after we grovelled a bit for a 9pm Friday night table.

It's independently owned, all  industrial metal air con, light bulbs hanging on wires from the ceiling, wall hangings which look like the fella who stunk of weed on the street outside banged them up in about twenty minutes, chalk boards with stuff crossed off, wooden floors with uneven bits, that sort of palaver. On the stereo there's "the times they are a changing" by Dylan banging out, your waiter and co owner is called Myles (or it might be Giles come to think of it), top lad either way who clearly knows his cebollas (I'll save you the Google trouble, it's Spanish for "onions").

The menu is on A4 paper, four starters, four mains, four desserts, it's got a kind of Spanishy/Portuguesy feel. There's another section before the starters, nibbles or light bites or something (it's neither of those but I'm buggered if I can think of it right now). In that bit whatever it's called is stuff like toasted almonds, olives, sourdough with butter etc. The almonds are labelled as "graciano" or something, the olives "Klubanos" (obviously neither of those are correct, I just made them up as I can't remember). Suffice to say they aren't getting their stock from the "taste the difference" section in Sainsbo's anyway.

We had off that bit a chorizo croquette which was bloody lovely, the bread both with normal butter and "jamon" butter (Myles/Giles did explain, but I did that nod and say "oh lovely" when you don't actually understand what he's on about), some of the olives (the size of a kids table snooker ball), some almonds (superb) and some anchovies (might have been little sardines). All were fabulous, particularly the jamon butter on bread thing, you MUST have that.

For starter I had a carrot & coconut soup which was far nicer than it sounds, I can't remember what everyone else had except Charlie my son who had octopus. Fair play to him.

For main there was a bavette steak with truffle chips. Obviously I didn't take much heed of the other stuff on the menu once I'd read that, although I do fleetingly remember the fish being either fresh cod or whole lemon sole. Milly had a gnochi thing which was lovely if you like that sort of thing, Sarah a pumpkin confit carry on, ditto. 

My steak was absolutely gorgeous, the chips jaw droppingly good. Everyone seemed to really enjoy theirs too and was keen to share bits around. They all tasted lovely in a pumpkinny/gnocchiey kind of way. Me and Charlie just wallowed in the excellence of our steak with ancovy cream (which thankfully didn't taste too much of anchovies).

We had desserts (lemon sorbets, chocolate mousses and stuff), the other three had a bottle of vino, espresso martinis and all that, I had a few pints of a local beer whose name escapes me, it was all absolutely brilliant and came in at under two hundred sovs.

The service, the food, the wall hangings, everything in this little gem of a spot is absolutely top drawer, we utterly loved it. Apparently it's owned in combination by the "iles" fella and the chef, they're mates. If anyone deserves success, it's these people.

If you DO ever go to Bristol, go to Caper & Cure. It's bloody brilliant.