Watershed Café and Bar

Lovely local ales & ciders & I suppose food.
Great film.
Community centre type place, good for events.
Great views of the rain pissing outside in the canal.

‘Plot-​to-​Plate’ is the motto at Watershed’s café, where the idea is to source produce as locally as possible, retaining more nutrients and a fresher taste. The menu is modern and healthy, and the bar sells independent beers and ciders. Chef Oliver Pratt has grown up around home grown food, and this has inspired his menu, which includes some nice salads and healthy fish dishes. The veggies come from Kidners Organic wholesalers and Bristol’s Better Food Company; food is fished sustainably and sourced in season; and the organic (and free range) meat comes from Devon Rose.
The café area itself is upstairs in the Watershed, and being housed in an old warehouse it’s pretty spacious, with nice décor. The atmosphere can sometimes feel a bit stilted during the week, because you’re aware that some people go there to work on their laptops — although at the weekend there’s more hustle and bustle and it’s a bit more relaxed.

I came here for a snack on a Sunday afternoon recently and was slightly underwhelmed by the food. Luckily my partner and I opted for a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge nachos, which it’s pretty hard to get wrong, but our friend left half of her halumi salad and the chicken strips with dips were also a bit dry. I did get to have a go on the new balcony, though, which offers some very nice views, and the Orchard Pig cider they’ve got on at the moment was far tastier than the food.
For all its ambience and attractive furnishings, the Watershed’s never going to compare to an actual pub, where you can let your hair down and actually enjoy yourself, without the fear that you might upset some pseudo-​Nathan Barley who’s tapping away on his laptop. In short, this is a place that’s easy to like but difficult to love.

I feel like a matinée idol when I swan into the Watershed bar, its a space of under-​the-​radar glam and huge pot plants and ex-​boat house high-​ceilings. I’m jettisoned into the 1950s (could be something about the film I’ve just seen as accompanying Watershed Media Centre!) and order a G&T which I sip overlooking the Harbourside on a bright but chilly afternoon. The food is hearty (garlic mushrooms on jacket spuds, sardines on toast, roasted veg and hummous) and they suscbribe to Plot-​to-​Plate mentality, so all local grub here then. Wash it down with fair-​trade coffee or an independent beer. Yummers, as they say in Brizzle.

This is located on a waterfront strip of bars that has, in the past, turned up on the local evening news as the location of drunken brawls on a saturday night. It’s funny, then, to find this arty, alternative place here.
In an old habourside warehouse, the place is high ceilinged and details include odd bits of exposed brick work. This design gives the bar equivalent of a loft conversion apartment. It would be optimistic to say you feel like you’re in Berlin or some other bohemian European city, but you do feel a bit more refined that the masses brawling below. Good food that’s ethically sourced and lively jazz in the background complete the picture. This is a bar to go and pretend you’re an aspiring writer and maybe be a bit pretentious.
I should add that the surrounding area is actually a delightful waterside location. You’ll feel completely fine during the day and on week nights. Things just get a bit more chaotic on the weekend, as they do throughout the centre of Bristol at that time.