Spitfire Barbecue — Restaurant in Bristol

If you are looking to eat the most flavoursome meat dishes in Bristol then you have to come here!

Do not come here if you are in a hurry. This restaurant does not pretend to be a fast food place and states that the food is slow cooked on their website menu. We had a 35 min wait for food to arrive, which was fine because we were having a chilled out Friday afternoon. Good things come to those who wait and we were rewarded with meat dishes that would make a T-Rex smile!

Next time we come back, it would be nice to have some complimentary savoury snacks (for example peanuts or crisps) to nibble on as we were chatting and waiting for the food to arrive. We were very hungry after driving a couple of hours. During the wait for our food to arrive, we watched the waiters eating at the pass. Some of them were picking up the food off the dish with their hands and some of them were using a fork. We got worried that they were sampling our food and they were going to bring it over half eaten. Luckily, our food was still cooking and their empty plate was taken back into the kitchen. It appears the chef had made a little treat for the staff! I’m glad the staff get well looked after as employees and they clearly enjoyed the food. However, when I used to work in a chip shop, we were only allowed to eat the food in the back room on a break.

The best meat dishes that we tried were that amazingly tasty Spitfire sausage and the pulled pork. There was a bottle of the restaurant’s own barbecue sauce on the table and this went perfectly with the pulled pork.

The beef brisket was tender and awesomely slow cooked but was served at a colder temperature compared to the other items on the tray.

The portion of Cowboy Fries served in a tiny enamel bowl was small for £6.55. We wish the portion was better value for money because they were so wonderfully crispy! Also, the half chicken was very small for £10. I wondered if it was a poussin. The half chickens in Nando’s are much larger.

The bones were removed from the portions of salt and pepper chicken thigh (that we ordered separately to the half chicken) which made the thighs very easy to eat. We enjoyed the bonus third thigh because we only ordered two! The thighs went perfectly with the Louisiana bottle of sauce on the table. This sauce is not for the faint hearted as it does have a strong chilli kick to it!

A waiter tried to take our tray before I’d eaten all of the yummy gherkin garnish! I’m a slow eater so I’m used to this happening, unfortunately. There were more staff than customers in the restaurant so maybe he was just looking for a job to do.

He came back again when I’d actually finished to take the remaining tray and plate. It was nice that he was smiley but he didn’t ask us if we’d like any desserts or the bill. We were sitting at our empty table for 7 minutes before we decided to get up and ask for dessert on the way to the toilet.

The toilets were fairly clean. I appreciate that you can’t choose your customers based on their toilet etiquette but there was urine on the seat in the men’s toilet. Based on the staff to customer ratio at the time we were in the restaurant then I think the toilets should have been spotless.

The peanut butter stack dessert then came out quickly within 1 minute of us asking. Think crunchy peanut caramel layered in a gooey chocolate cake. I was expecting it to be served warm but I think it was served cold to keep the layers in tact. It was divine!

The bill came to £77.60 for the two of us. That included two pint of cider, a selection of bbq mains, half a chicken, two sides and one dessert (which we shared). Pricey but the meat and other ingredients were of a high quality.

Overall, the superb food itself is worthy of the 5 stars I gave in this review. We really enjoyed eating and drinking everything...

We have walked past this place so many times and the smell coming from it has been delightful. Finding ourselves back in Bristol and a special occasion we decided to book a table. Good job we did as it was very busy.. so busy you could hardly hear the music over people talking. It was very noisy. The lemon meringue cocktail was amazing and I had noticed there was Sticky Toffee pudding in the dessert menu which I was really looking forward to. The garlic type bread arrived, mine with cheese and the other half had it without. It was amazing and we were really looking forward to the rest of our meal. However, this is when things started to go wrong. An hour after ordering the waiter came over very apologetic but the belly pork I had ordered along side my dirty fries was not available. I politely said I will just have the dirty fries then (thinking about the sticky toffee pudding that was still teasing me from the dessert menu) thinking possibly would be a side plate as they came with pulled pork on. Not long after my dirty fries arrived along with my husbands wings and coleslaw … no sign of his fries or sausage he had ordered. By this time we were starving so we started eating … when we had finished the sausage turned up. We didn’t end up getting the remainder of our meal or the Sticky Toffee Pudding. A big thank you to the gentleman (possibly the manager) who had seen we were upset and just wanted to go, who spoke to the kitchens to see what had gone on and was very apologetic on the restaurants behalf.

The food we had was very tasty but took so long and most of it never appeared!

There were a number of larger parties there and no one else seemed to be having the issues we did. So maybe it was just bad luck.

Thank you again to the gentleman that spoke to us so calmly even though I initially wasn’t the politest person in the world after being so disappointed.

Maybe at some point I will return for the sticky...

Had high expectations of this place looking at the menu and previous reviews.

Unfortunately it falls short in a couple of places. First is value for money. Prices are about 20% to much for the quality of the food. Ribs and chips is around £26 which would be fine if they were of a higher standard. I had the Lois Rib and it was nice enough and the portion was generous, but the fat hadn't rendered as much as I like, and the meat itself lacked flavour and didnt have much bark to it. The house BBQ sauce was very average. Drinks are also very expensive. Dirty fries were disappointing and not very dirty (cubed meats sprinkled over some thick cut chips). Mentions fries on the menu but they are more like steak cut chips. The onion strings and mac and cheese were really nice though!

Service... Our server was nice enough but when the food arrived there were 3 mistakes, my side was given to someone else on the table (on their plate) sides were sort of chucked anywhere. Unfortunately one party members order was misheard (it happens, but in this case could absolutely have been handled better). Our server took the plate away and another male member of staff came back and very bluntly tried to get the party member to accept what they had been given as it was 'the same but had a bun on it'. We politely declined and asked for what we ordered which was met with a loud huff as the plate was taken away. Not good, especially considering things like allergies that could have been a factor here.

We finished our mains and were offered dessert, to which we declined as we were stuffed! We were sat chatting away as we hadn't seen eachother for a while and flagged a member of staff down to pay the bill. We spent a whole hour at the table not being offered another drink, refill on our water or... Anything. Pretty basic stuff. Not great when you leave a restaurant thirsty.

Will not be...