Café Rouge - Bristol Cribbs

Noticed but not acknowledged while standing at the entrance, we had vouchers so we pressed on. After we had managed to wrestle with the menu my wife and I ordered more or less the same thing. We were informed there were no mussels (it was august anyway, why were they on the menu?) Or sirloin steak... In a shopping center...

I had some breaded camembert and she a souffle. Both of these were clearly not made on site but in a restaurant like this that's fair enough. We had ordered rib-eye steaks both done medium rare with bernaise sauce. Sounds nice? It wasn't. First of all, my steak was cooked properly but my wife's was rare to the point of almost being blue, no biggy we just swapped. The meat had clearly not been seasoned while cooking and the overriding flavour was "burnt". There was clearly something on the grill (incidentally... French restaurant, do it in a pan) that had been cremated and not cleaned. The sauce tasted like melted margerine without even a hint of that tarragon flavour or the acidic sharpness that should have been there and it had clearly been sat under a heat lamp in the kitchen since the steaks began getting destroyed.

Seriously was the chef traumatised by a cow at an early age to engender such clear hatred of anything bovine?

The only saving grace was the manager who replaced my food without fuss (chicken this time since you can't really go wrong with half a chicken... Actually you can but that's another story). In the end we left having paid for one drink only so Cafe Rouge has clawed back a star from the lowest possible rating.

TLDR: When in damage limitation the service is great. The food tastes like the cooking equipment in the kitchen is filthy. Don't order steak.