Sonny Stores — Restaurant in Bristol

We are disappointed. I’d been eyeing Sonny stores for a visit and booked as soon as saw Jay Rayner’s review of it. I’ll start by holding up my hand and admitting we were 5 minutes late. Parking in Southville is appalling and we should have known better. I really felt they’d crammed as many tables in as humanly possible which meant I was sat halfway onto a Yukka plant. Drinks: soft drinks - we felt £5 for a lemonade was too expensive, but the wine was nice. Food: we enjoyed the starters very much. There was a long delay with our mains, after finishing our starters. Which was fine by us, we made no complaint, we were informed the food would be coming soon and we were fine with that. Unfortunately when it arrived we realised the Margherita pizza had Parmesan on it (which my son dislikes) so we asked if we could order a second pizza, without Parmesan and made it clear we would be happy to pay for this second pizza (and we did). It’s not the restaurant’s fault our son doesn’t like Parmesan. They were happy to accommodate but I think this could have been avoided if somewhere it was visible what was on the pizzas (like a menu). They prioritised the second pizza. My husband and I continued eating and finished our meals (at our usual fast pace) and whilst taking our son to the bathroom my husband was informed by the waiter that our table was needed back in 20 minutes, in a way we found somewhat abrasive. My son’s second pizza hadn’t arrived yet at this point. And we weren’t invited to continue our stay, order deserts, coffee etc. which we had been planning on doing as we were looking forward to this lunch since booking a week ago. Our main issue with our experience was that their speed of service doesn’t allow for reasonably fast eaters to enjoy a 3 course meal and we felt penalised for the delay in the kitchen/service. Our feedback would be to reconsider how long you give a seating for or to improve the...

I’ve been wanting to visit Sonny Stores for some time. I like that it’s a small little restaurant with friendly and inviting vibes. Great and cosy atmosphere too. Service was good and attentive and the staff took time to explain the menu to us and offer recommendations.

The food however was a bit of a letdown. The portion for every dish was rather sad given how expensive the food was. The trout that was served as antipasti was just a tiny piece of trout (not even a proper slice) spread across a leaf of salad. I was expecting a lot for a £30 ravioli dish as my main, but the presentation was subpar with a few raviolis spread across the plate here and there. One of the clams in the spaghetti dish that my friend had wasn’t washed properly leaving a lot of sand in the plate. We gave feedback to the staff during our meal but instead of acknowledging the suboptimal standard we were given excuses of how difficult it is to ensure every single clam is cleaned properly although she offered to inform the kitchen of our experience.

We had antipasti, main dish and dessert but I left the restaurant hungry still.

Overall, great vibe. Food was decent overall but not exceptional as you would expect from an expensive restaurant. Would I return? Probably not for dinner service, although if they offer cheaper lunch deal but I might consider...

Think we might have been unlucky with the food given the rave reviews elsewhere. We're pescatarian which is normally fine and there were some good choices but was surprised about the amount of meat on the menu (even the fish dish has pancetta which we asked to be removed, which is obviously fine but it means there isn't a main fish dish where we could've tried the whole thing in the way it was designed by the chef). The bean stew is totally odd in this setting. Very much a 'whats left in my fridge on a Wednesday night' vibe, not really visually appealing and was so salty that my partner left half of it (I've genuinely never seen her leave food before). On the whole though the food was fine, just perhaps not quite meeting expectation at this price point. My main gripe is the lack of any attempt whatsoever to soundproof this space. If you are going pack this many tables in to a front room, please please please put some soft furnishings around the place, or use ceiling dampeners (e.g. at Cor up the road). Its really loud and materially affects your experience. Some curtains, cushions, wall hangings, anything and it's so easy to do. The service was excellent, very attentive, friendly and genuine. Although the contagion of automatically adding a 'discretionary' 12.5% service charge...