City Cafe - Bristol

Located in the City Inn, the City Café is effectively the restaurant for the hotel, and is suitably smart, with warm colours and an air of business about it that is hardly surprising considering its location in the city centre. The menu is reassuringly recognisable and includes starters of braised oxtail soup with herb dumplings, an open lasagne of pigeon and wild mushrooms, a very good lightly curried chicken and baby leek terrine, and a pan-fried lamb cutlet and sweetbread with honey and mustard dressing.

Main courses are equally interesting, headed by breast of duck with duck leg faggots, black pudding and a red wine jus, poached salmon on a chorizo and crayfish risotto, or fillet of pork with an anchovy and caper crust. Nor do the puddings let the side down, witness the raspberry charlotte with a brandy snap basket, cape gooseberries and crème chantilly leading the way. Bristol may be well supplied in the way of creditable eating-houses, but one more, centred on a smart, well-located hotel, will certainly not do any harm.