Paul Southgate
Google
There are some places that aren’t so much part of the food scene as they are part of the actual scenery. Places so ingrained in the local fabric, you’re not sure whether they serve sausages or hold up the street itself. The Clifton Sausage is one of those places. A fixture. A stalwart. A culinary lamppost. It’s been there so long, it’s basically a Grade II listed gravy boat.
And the setting? Well, Clifton Village is one of those smugly perfect bits of Bristol that looks like it was dreamed up by a National Trust focus group. Georgian terraces. Wisteria. A cheese shop. A wine merchant with actual opinions. But catch it on a warm Friday evening and it’s magic. That post-work lull where the sun glances off the stone and the locals—actual locals, not day-trippers or students on their ninth coffee of the day—come out to play.
That’s when I like it. When Clifton breathes out. When people drink properly rather than “catch up” over something served in a jam jar. Which is exactly what I was doing, slightly sweaty from a day pretending to work, still tender from the night before. Hair of the dog? Obviously. And, in such pleasant surroundings, one became three, and the idea of cooking at home became as likely as Boris Johnson winning Mastermind with “Personal Integrity” as his specialist subject.
So: dinner. And when you’re in this part of town and you’ve had a few, the Clifton Sausage is not so much an option as a gravitational pull. It’s comfort food without the side order of shame.
We turned up unbooked—reckless, yes, but sometimes life needs a bit of edge—and were slotted in with the warm, efficient grace of a place that knows it’s good and doesn’t need to shout about it. Most tables were taken. Not heaving, not shouty, just full in the way a Friday night pub should be.
Starters? No thank you. I don’t go to gigs to watch the support acts, and I didn’t come here for a croquette. I came for the big boys. The sausages. The mash. The gravy that could bring peace to the Middle East.
And here’s the rub: the menu always waves something fancy at you—calves’ liver in Madeira, pork belly with cider gravy, all gorgeous, all temptations—but my eyes never get past the toad in the hole. It’s not just a dish. It’s an embrace. A Yorkshire pudding duvet cradling proper porkiness.
Then you must choose your bangers. Eight options. I went Old Spot, because I’m a patriot. But there was a moment, fleeting but real, when I considered asking for all eight. A Sausage Octet. A Symphony in Snout. But I imagined the look on my companion’s face and settled for one, like a coward.
Mash or champ? Come on. Champ, obviously. A bit of greenery in your potato like a nod to your five-a-day. And that onion gravy? Rich, sweet, the kind of thing that makes you sit back and exhale slowly through your nose like a bloke in a gravy advert.
And that’s it, really. No fireworks, no gimmicks, no edible soil or foam or anything being “deconstructed”. Just good food done properly by people who care. You eat, you smile, you maybe have another pint. You walk home full and vaguely grateful for the world.
So thank you, Clifton Sausage, for being there. For being reliable. For not buggering about. You’re not just part of the village—you are the village. Long may you sizzle.
