Bell's Diner

Brainchild (16 January 2009)

We took our two children to eat at Bell's Diner as a sophisticated 'treat' and I am sorry to say we began to regret shortly after we walked in. For quite some time we were completely ignored as the waiting staff bustled past us - then finally we were offered a table almost as an afterthought. I am no food writer so I won't attempt any big descriptions of the food; suffice to say those who are familiar with Heston Blumenthal's style of cooking would find this a poor imitation. Between us we have dined out at expensive restaurants all over the UK and Far East and unfortunately the dining experience at Bell's Diner really was not up there with the best. Our children are by no means fussy eaters but they did not enjoy the food either. The service veered between vastly over-familiar and have-we-been-forgotten and the children were patronised in particularly annoying fashion. Bell's Diner is overpriced, overrated and I very much doubt we'll ever eat there again.

Donald Kennedy (29 September 2008)

Bell's Diner chef-owner Chris Wicks acknowledges the influence of gastronomy geniuses Ferran Adria and Heston Blumenthal. But as much as I admire his approach, he’s taking a risk that doesn’t quite pay off. Take my oyster starter: three shells perched atop small piles of Maldon on black slate, topped with a lime-green dome of cucumber mousse and a few salted sturgeon eggs. But the creatures were too warm, plump and milky; the mousse wasn't chilled sufficiently and had too much volume, drawing more attention to the flabby bivalves. Had they been dainty, sweet natives and the same mouse reduced by a factor five, it may have worked. But having to hold the mushy, salty contents of one shell in the mouth almost activated a gag reflex. My main - a disk of slightly rubbery veal - was horribly under seasoned, bar its advertised herb ‘crust’, which looked and tasted like Paxo mixed with lukewarm tap water. The griolles scattered around it were the finest quality, but a little salt and pepper would have made them magical. The raw-tasting gnocchi suffered similarly, and there was precious little to bind the scattered items together. For £20, the dish felt unpleasant to eat.

The wife's pigeon in soup-like cream and pea sauce also lacked cohesion. The sauce tasted like a pot of double cream had been poured in with some meagre pan juices– the kind of thing you'd make at home not having access to stocks or other bits of chef’s wisdom. It was also under seasoned, offering no kinship for the perfectly cooked pigeon and making the dish insipid and overly fatty. My dessert had similar issues: a white chocolate tiramisu was topped with what tasted like a cup of weak instant coffee poured loose into a freezer and scrapped off a few weeks later after it had been infused with chlorofluorocarbons. Balance of volumes of bland custards and creams was all over the place. Her crème brûlée with strawberries was delicious, spiked with space dust. Bar the oysters, the dishes all looked pretty enough. The wooden surrounds are homely and romantic, the bread reasonable and the service excellent, and they threw in some basic touches for the occasion at hand. But the top-end priced dishes smack of pretence and mild desperation. Blumenthal's freaky combos ride on technical perfection, considered textures and concentrated flavours. It's a fine line that he chooses to walk daily. Bell's Diner is a wonderful place for the birthday and St Valentine's crew. But Bristol would have itself a real gem if Wicks concentrated more on the methods and chemistry and less on the gimmickry. It speaks volumes about his love of local produce that his menu carried the minimum of vegetarian options. But it says much more that he declines to put salt and pepper on his tables.

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