The restaurant has been open 17 years but it's still a bit of a 'well-kept secret'
What's On Mark Taylor Content Editor 05:00, 18 Apr 2025
Amazing value - that’s one way you could describe the new spring set menu at the Second Floor restaurant at Bristol’s Harvey Nichols store.
At £35 for three courses, or £28 for two, including a complimentary Brugal Dominican 88 rum cocktail to kick things off, it really strays into ‘bargain’ territory.
And, let’s face it, there probably aren’t too many items on sale in this high-end store for those kind of accessible prices.
Since it opened in 2008, the restaurant at Harvey Nichols has offered a consistently high quality dining experience when it comes to food and service.
Our waitress told us she had been there for nine years herself - a rare thing in hospitality when people dart from one job to the next.
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She said she loved working there and it was a nice place to work, which says a lot.
The shiny, gold-hued dining room hasn’t really changed that much in the 17 years it has been open and it still provides a genuine ‘wow’ factor, a glamorous place to dress up for lunch or dinner.
The new spring menu offers five choices per course and seasonal ingredients appear throughout, from asparagus and rhubarb to lamb and wild garlic.
We start with smoked trout raviolo - a plump pasta parcel packed with smoked fish and served with Wye Valley asparagus, lashings of rich beurre blanc sauce and a generous amount of caviar dotted around the plate.
There’s also a starter of plump, perfectly timed Lyme Bay scallops flanked by brown shrimp, segments of pink grapefruit, salsify and monk’s beard - OK, it carries a £8 supplement but it’s worth the additional investment.
Moving on to main course, the corn-fed chicken breast (with a £3 supplement) is juicy and perfectly cooked, served with chanterelles, roasted baby carrots, peas and a tarragon-flecked sauce.
Duroc pork tomahawk, taken off the bone and sliced into thick lozenges, is deep-flavoured and cleverly paired with rhubarb, radish, spring onion and a spicy Mexican mole verde.
We shared some French fries (£5), although other sides include luxurious truffle dauphinoise potatoes (£7) and roasted hispi cabbage, chilli and lemon pangratatto (£7).
For dessert, a wobbly vanilla buttermilk pannacotta with tonka bean, macerated sour cherries and ginger meringue was an intelligent flavour pairing.
As was the beautifully presented mango bavarois, sea buckthorn, coconut ice cream and brandy snap.
Of course, there are a few supplements, and then drinks and service on top, but the set menu still keeps the final bill down which is a welcome surprise in such straitened, uncertain times.
The restaurant may have been open 17 years but it's still a bit of a well-kept secret and those in the know probably like to keep it that way.
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It's one of Bristol's snazziest restaurants serving high quality food at accessible prices and that's why it's still going strong after all these years.
Second Floor Restaurant at Harvey Nichols, 27 Philadelphia Street, Quakers Friars, Broadmead, Bristol, BS1 3BZ. Tel: 0117 9168888.
