I knew a number of things about Noah’s, the newish fish and seafood restaurant that opened in Bristol at the start of May, from the research I did prior to visiting. I knew that it was run by a married couple, Daniel and Joie Rosser, and that their family ran the highly-regarded Scallop Shell just down the road in Bath. I knew that the place was named after their son, who turned one shortly after it opened. I knew that it occupied an iconic site in Bristol which used to double as Sid’s Café in Only Fools And Horses, although I had to admit I didn’t remember that at all. I knew the views out towards Clifton Suspension Bridge were meant to be quite something. And last of all, I knew that it was allegedly right under a flyover.

I didn’t really believe that last one could be true, but it was. It was a bracing half hour walk from our hotel, past M Shed and all the appealing restaurants of Wapping Wharf, and then down a long, unlovely road that ran the full length of Spike Island, until you felt like you were somewhat in the middle of nowhere. It was one of those walks that felt far longer than it was, drab and featureless, and I found myself wishing I’d taken a taxi (if you go to Noah’s, take a taxi). And then, at the end of the rainbow, there was indeed a flyover with Noah’s nestled underneath it, looking beautiful and incongruous.

It was mainly incongruous by virtue of being so beautiful. The outside, all wooden boards, tastefully curving in at the base, looked like the hull of a boat. And that motif continued inside, with big picture windows and portholes, bare wood floors and blue banquettes. It was a gorgeous, serene dining room, wonderfully lit, and managed to be vaguely nautical without ever approaching naff, in itself a considerable achievement. 

We were some of the first customers there at half past twelve and our welcome, from co-owner Joie, was warm and genuine. We took a generously sized table in the middle of the restaurant – the late morning sun was intense through those huge windows – and recovered from the walk, enjoying the space and that feeling of calm. I was concerned for them but I needn’t have been, because over the next couple of hours the place filled up nicely. Although it was an unseasonably warm autumn day I could see from the decking area outside that this place would come into its own again next summer.

One of the many things to like about Noah’s menu is that it changes daily: I had been watching it on their Instagram stories so I knew that it shifted subtly from day to day depending on what the restaurant had in and how they’d decided to cook it. Fish tended to be from Brixham or Newlyn, mussels were from St Austell but the menu always specifies where everything was caught.

Small changes notwithstanding, the spine of the menu remained constant – mains in particular involving either fried fish and chips or grilled fish with either chips or new potatoes. Simple pleasures, especially when done exceptionally well. They also have a very reasonable set lunch (which they offer even at weekends), called the Lock Keeper’s Lunch, which comes with a cup of tea and a teatime set menu which does not. I found that admirable too.

There was just the one meat free starter, which was vegetarian but not vegan, and a couple of fish free mains, one involving chicken and the other with chickpea fritters. So really, you do have to like fish to go to Noah’s or your choice is more limited than Tess Daly’s presenting skills. Starters were either side of the ten pound divide, mains clustered around twenty. I identified my first and second choice of main course, reasoning that I’d be happy with either of them, and then Zoë picked my first choice and somehow I still had FOMO. This happens, I should add, almost without fail.

But first, we had some starters, accompanied by a rehydrating bottle of sparkling mineral water to try and undo the damage from the night before. Bread was from Somerset bakery Lievito, who supply a few Bristol restaurants, and I rather liked it – nicely open-crumbed, although maybe lacking in a satisfactory crust. Giving three slices to a table for two is asking for trouble, though, if you ask me. The anchovy and rosemary butter needed two things, more anchovy and more butter. What there was I liked, but what there wasn’t is what I noticed.

Cod fishcakes were sold by the unit at a reasonable three pounds fifty and Zoë nabbed a couple. I don’t think you can go wrong with salt cod, and these were delicious spheres: from a distance they looked more blond than bronzed but the texture was bang on. Sitting them on a little moat of tomato vinaigrette and topping them with a dab of aioli was a terrific touch, too. My forkful passed too quickly: there wasn’t to be another.

Even better, I thought, were the prawns, plump fleshy commas fried until crispy and positively moreish. This dish was made by the addition of a superb sweet chilli sauce with proper heat, so well balanced that it showed up the shop-bought stuff as sugary, one-dimensional syrup.

My favourite of the starters, though, was all mine: gorgeous smoked sardine fillets loaded on to an airy rectangle of sourdough along with a tomato concasse with capers, all sweetness, acid and bite. Such a superb combination, and a reminder that salt and vinegar is not only the best crisp flavour but also the pairing that perfects so many fish dishes.

As it happens, the day I wrote this I had sardines on toast for lunch, decanted from a tin. Pale imitation doesn’t even begin to do justice to how many miles separate that lunch and this impeccable dish: perhaps I need to check out the Tinned Fish Market.

Mains were reasonably paced, turning up about twenty minutes after we’d dispatched our starters. Zoë had chosen ray wing, beating me to it – ordinarily I find it impossible not to order, when I see it on menus. It was a beautiful specimen, muscular and golden, and they’d presented it with the thinner side up: always the right way to do it, as there’s nothing worse than getting halfway through eating a ray wing, flipping it over and finding the metaphorical thin end of the wedge lying in wait.

From my look through Noah’s menus they tend to serve ray wing one of two ways – the classic, with brown butter and capers, or as a curveball with a curried lentil dal. On paper I prefer the former, but it was the latter on the day we visited and actually I thought it worked pretty well. Zoe let me try a little and using a knife to curl it away from the cartilage, dabbing it with the dal and eating it was a mindful, almost meditative experience. More of that please, as Anton Du Beke has taken to saying on Strictly.

And the dal really was good, although it seemed a bit bet-hedging to serve it with lentils and still give you the choice of chips or new potatoes, both of which made more sense if it had been served with brown butter and capers. Minor quibbles about an excellent dish, and one I very much wished I’d ordered.

I on the other hand had chosen another kind of classic dish: haddock and chips, with tartare sauce and mushy peas. Quintessentially British, many would say, and when done well almost unimprovable. By happy coincidence, yesterday Noah’s announced that it had made the top 5 in the 2024 National Fish & Chip Awards, which is impressive going for a restaurant that has barely been open for six months. So this would be game-changing fish and chips, wouldn’t it? Just look at the photo below: what’s not to like?

Sadly, it turned out there were things not to like. It was a good illustration of how social media isn’t real life, because the ubiquitous flat lay photograph hid a multitude of sins. Looking down from above it seemed as good a portion of fish and chips as you could hope for. And it started well – the batter on top light and frilly, crinkled and crenellated, giving way to firm flakes of fish. But underneath, it was still soggy and oily, that oil glazing the chips in a way that wasn’t enormously pleasant.

And soggy-bottomed fish aside, the chips were not great. You can’t see it in this picture, because they’re entirely obscured by the fillet of haddock, but many of them were strangely grey-edged and unappealing. Plonking the fish on top of the chips is a serving choice, not one I’d personally have taken, but it happened to conceal some slightly manky chips.

They were lacking in crunch and salt, just didn’t have enough of the good stuff and, as I said, had that disconcerting hue. I left just under half of them. That might not bother you, it might be a me thing – I’ve never eaten a crisp I haven’t thoroughly inspected first – but for me if you serve fish and chips and neither of them is spot on, that feels like an elementary mistake (in fairness, Zoë’s chips looked more appetising).

It’s a pity because the tartar sauce, served artfully in a scallop shell, was also well executed. If anything, it was a bit too posh for me – I love the properly vinegary kick of the stuff in a jar, the cheaper the better – but I could appreciate it without necessarily loving it. The mushy peas must have been pretty authentic, because I didn’t fancy them at all. That definitely is me rather than the restaurant: I can handle crushed peas at a push, or pea purée, but when it comes to smushed-up marrowfat I’m very much a disciple of the Church Of Mandelson.

Anyway, in my book the best way to get over a disappointing main, unless you’ve positively taken against a place, is to dive headlong into a great dessert. Noah’s offers three to choose from, along with ice cream or affogato, but we both spotted the chocolate mousse and from that point everything else was an irrelevance. It was huge and outstanding – a dense, thick and indulgent thing with a globe of clotted cream ice cream on top. The ice cream was completely unnecessary, which is not to say I didn’t love it or finish every last morsel.

Although we’d been on the sparkling mineral water throughout, the list of sweet wines and digestifs was too good to swerve. I was very interested in an English amaretto, made by the modishly named E18hteen Gin, but I also spotted a red dessert wine, a tannat no less, that sounded too interesting to miss out on. Red dessert wines are one of my abiding loves in the world of booze – give me a Banyuls and I’m a happy man – but I’d never had one made with tannat before. I’m used to that brooding grape in Uruguayan reds, but what would it be like in a dessert wine?

The answer, it turned out, was stellar: one of the best dessert wines I’ve had in ages, all vanilla and cocoa, perfect with the mousse. “It’s one of my favourites” said our server, “and it really goes with that dessert.” I made a note of the wine, Googled it and wondered just how many bottles to get in for Christmas.

On another day we could have dallied longer and by then I had a full picture of the kind of restaurant Noah’s was – light, tasteful, full of locals and alive with chatter and company. You wouldn’t think this was a restaurant still in its first six months, or that it had such a challenging location. That’s a tribute, I think, to just how well they’ve hit the ground running and the work they’ve put into making sure they have something for everyone. Our bill for three courses, some sparkling water and those dessert wines came to just over a hundred and ten pounds, not including tip.

As so often with reviews of Bristol restaurants, I can’t help putting my Reading hat on and thinking Do we have anything like this? and, because the answer to that question is invariably no, Do I wish we did? The answer to that second question is a resounding yes – I don’t think Reading has ever had anything like Noah’s, and if you tell me we used to have Loch Fyne I would say yes we did, but it was no great shakes.

But other things make Noah’s feel special, too, I’ve seen few restaurants go to so much trouble to find their target market, to appeal to it and to try and hit so many bases without becoming some kind of bloated, all day dining behemoth that forgets what it’s all about. And yet, when I think about Noah’s some more, the one blot on the copybook is that fish and chips. It is such a shame that it wasn’t completely at the top of its game when I went – maybe I got unlucky with the fish, or picked the one day when their potatoes weren’t the best.

But even so I can’t bring myself to knock the rating down too much because literally everything else – the room, the welcome, the menu, those starters, that ray wing, that dessert – was very close to perfect. I ate at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant in Padstow a couple of times earlier this year for my dad’s birthday and it was a lovely experience on each occasion, even if the whole of Padstow is like a Centre Parcs for affluent boomers. And yet, farther from the sea, many miles from the day boats, nestled in the concrete embrace of that incongruous flyover, I reckon Noah’s gives it, and certainly anywhere in Reading, a run for its money.

Noah’s – 8.5
1 Brunel Lock Road, Bristol, BS1 6XS
0117 4529240

https://www.noahsbristol.co.uk