Mugshot Restaurants Bristol — Restaurant in Bristol

We were excited to look for a place to eat before a gorgeous gig at the Beacon and I chose here as we love the 1920s and steak, so it seemed like a great place to try in our visit to our home city for an important and special occasion for us. We got caught in awful weather, traffic jams, carpark mishaps and thunderstorms and the booking we made was full of stern instructions about being on time, being charged for no-shows and cancellations and despite everything, we were soaked and exhausted by the time we managed to get there with a few minutes to spare and couldn't believe it we had made it. On finding the restaurant and entering, dripping and pleased and dying for a drink, we were told sharply to leave by someone shouting from the bar and to wait for five minutes in the inclement weather outside. We were so disappointed in our first impression. We finally went in at the appointed time and was given a table which had space for the slenderest of people to slide into the seat and also strangely high. Our waiter was pleasant and somewhat helpful and the restaurant was pretty deserted despite our booking again telling us sternly that we had 90 minutes only at our table before being ejected. As for the atmosphere of the much vaunted 1920s amazing dining experience, there was none. We ordered Chateaubriand as we love it and we have also used hot stones before. The meat was nice and the sides were fine, but the price was far in excess of Chateaubriand cooked beautifully by signature chefs just a stone's throw away. You pay not just for the cut but for the beauty of the cooking and the price seems far too high to not be paying a quality chef to be doing this for you. There was no discussion about the menu, the different sorts of steaks, no suggestions about wine, no attention to what you were ordering and a short display on how to use the stones. Even the glasses for wine reminded me of the one's you used to get free from the garage and the music was a garbled mix of all sorts with a token older tune chucked in. The toilets weren't signposted and had so little light I had to fish out my phone to locate the bin. We were puzzled more than anything and wondered if the early hour of our booking was because there was no atmosphere or spirit to the place, but it just felt flat and we felt that largely staff were indifferent to our presence. Trying to catch the bar staff's attention was possible but they promptly turned their back on us so we just waited it out until the sole waiter was looking our way. It's a shame as we are always looking for new favourites but we won't be back. Our waiter as mentioned was nice and accommodating but overall, it's overpriced and devoid of any special feel and the dictatorial booking has to work both ways - we are happy to turn up on time, we wouldn't ever be inattentive to this kind of policy, but don't be so rude when people turn up a little early. A missed...

It's all about the theatre...

Have you noticed, that now that eating out is becoming increasingly expensive, that dining out is increasingly about the experience, as well as the food and drink?

Well, Mugshot delivers very well in this arena, as it's speciality is a sharing experience of steak-on-a-hot stone. (Think a British take on Teppeanyaki). Various steaks for sharing are available, from Porterhouse, to Chateaubriand and the particularly apt Caveman, a whole 1000 gram chunk of tomahawk. Accompany this with two sauces of your choice, plus four flavoured butters, and your culinary adventure begins.

The steak is seared before delivery and cut into manageable chunks, for the idea is to place a knob of butter on the hot stone, watch it melt and then place a bit size chunk of meat into the butter puddle and watch it cook to your level of perfection (no blaming the chef here for overcooked steak as you're the captain of this particular culinary odyssey).

The butter really does add flavour and succulence, with the mint variety being a particular favourite (a honey one added to much sweetness). Add to this some triple cooked chips, and you and your steak sharing friend are away on a delightful experience. An advantage of cooking in this manner is the opportunity it provides to have a natter - typically, when a whole meal arrives at once, conversation dries while diners tuck in.

Also on offer - some truly lovely ice cream.and sorbet (and excellent Meantime beer).

So far so enjoyable, right? Then why did I leave feeling hungry?

I'd opted for the Caveman, and a great steak it was - typically robust, with excellent flavour. (In comparison, my dining partners Chateaubriand was melt in the mouth, delicacy of flavour). Alas, being a tomahawk, almost half the weight of the steak was a bone, in the shape of a huge beef rib. Very impressive, certainly when presented to you otherwise useless - unless you have a dog. By comparison, my partner's Chateaubriand had meat aplenty and I ended up having some of hers.

The flavoured butters were also nice, but good steak really doesn't need this - as a purist, I enjoy the flavour of the meat itself, whereas adding juiciness and flavour "artificially" seems like a bit of a cheat. (It's needed to stop your steak sticking to the hot stone, as a compromise. A downside is the clouds of buttery smoke that will envelope you and your party - you'll not exit the restaurant smelling of daisies). Finally, eat your chips quick, especially if you order the truffle oil ones , as when they go cold, they taste of stale oil. Not pleasant.

Overall, a great dining experience, but my steak house of preference is Miller & Carter (for their Butchers Block of three different cuts of steak) in the Royal Marriot. Equal quality, but far better for making one...

Disappointing and baffling!

I have never experienced such an aggressive and unshakable denial of reason behind a complaint about food in a restaurant. Bizarrely followed by an acknowledgment of a problem by the removal of items we were happy with from the bill.

We ordered the Caveman Boeuf - a tomahawk steak - and after being told the restaurant serves the steak blue for diners to cook themselves, asked that the kitchen cook it medium rare on our behalf instead - something that was swiftly agreed to, although we were cautioned that we were missing out on the ultimate way to cook steak - yourself on a hot stone with flavoured butter. Something I did disagree with, hence the request that the restaurant cook it for us.

When the steak came it was flavourless. It didn’t taste of beef. When we told the staff that, we were given two reasons, a) that ordering it medium rare wasn’t the way to best cook that cut and b) that if we got the hot stone and cooked it with flavoured butter, then it would taste of something. The first reason is untrue to anyone who knows anything about steak and the second would give us flavour but not that of steak and isn’t really the point when you pay £90 for a piece of beef.

We had eaten about a third and said we didn’t expect to pay for it. We were told we had to as one of the staff members had eaten it and said it was full of flavour. But that our starter - pigs in blankets which was excellent -, extra sides and service would be taken off. In an aggressive tone we were told we had to pay for the meal we hadn’t eaten and we were left with another member of staff who was left to deal with us. We paid but not without polite protest.

I’ve once before at another restaurant had to complain about flavourless steak. The staff tried it, agreed it was flavourless and realised it was an issue they needed to sort out with their supplier. That someone working in a steak restaurant has no idea what a properly flavoured piece of steak tastes like and believes you need to add flavoured butter to it to make it taste of something, is worrying and explains a lot about their lack of understanding about the complaint. It also makes me suspicious of their so called ‘ideal way to cook steak’ as it conveniently allows any sub-standard meat to be disguised by the numerous flavoured butters on offer. It might explain their aggressive defence and their denial of the issue.

So, don’t go. Find somewhere in Bristol that will cook the...