Fishers Restaurant - Bristol

In a city not overburdened with restaurants dedicated to the fruits of the sea, Fishers is a welcome port of call. The commitment is pretty total too, from the porthole on the kitchen door to the rather lonely non-fish dishes on the menu. Starters could include grilled sardines with plum tomatoes, well stuffed with feta, pine-nuts and basil oil, or a smoked salmon and avocado salad with brandy dill dressing. One is immediately conscious of the quality of the food and presentation, as well as the generosity of the portions, a constant factor throughout the meal.

Some say that Harry Ramsden was responsible for the notion of fish cooked with a beer batter overcoat, though it seems more likely he jumped on a good idea and gave it a wider audience. Either way, it is practised at Fishers with great skill, making an everyday dish into something special. A whole lemon sole is always a treat, particularly if it has been spared some of the over-fussiness that this wonderfully flavoured fish sometimes suffers at the hands of those who really should know better, and at Fishers they do the job just right.

Every so often it seems that seafood restaurants tend to run out of steam by the time the pudding is reached, but at Fishers the treats don't end with the fish. Delicious banana fritters and a quality sticky toffee pudding leave no doubt that there is a restaurant that is reliable and has good standards.