Features / Restaurants
‘A celebration of seafood’
On a recent afternoon at Noah’s, the menus had just been printed for that evening’s service. Market landings included cod loin caught in the north Atlantic, whiting and gurnard fillet from Brixham, and a whole red mullet and thornback ray wing from Newlyn.
Noah’s co-owner Dan Rosser soon wants to go one step further with informing diners about the provenance of their plate: putting the name of the boat which caught the fish on the menu.
This isn’t just about the ink the menu is written on either with Dan regularly taking his team on research trips to Brixham to show them how the fish comes off the boats and into the market, and then how it’s sold onto the wholesaler who Dan calls every morning to find out what fish is available to buy, which will then inform that day’s unique food offering in the restaurant.
is needed now More than ever
Named after their son, Dan and his wife Joie opened Noah’s in 2023, spending around half a million pounds on transforming the former Lockside into what Dan calls “a celebration of seafood”.
With frank honesty, Dan said that the early days of Noah’s were a real challenge with as few as four people for lunch.
But the number of diners has steadily been growing; no doubt helped by the several awards that the restaurant has already won including being named the UK’s third best chippy at the National Fish & Chip Awards and receiving a glowing review in the Guardian by Grace Dent.
Noah’s was previously Lockside and before that a transport cafe – photo: Martin Booth
Dan, who lives in Bath where his dad Garry runs the Scallop Shell, said that Noah’s so far “has been a rollercoaster of emotions” but it is also a “long-term project”.
“We’re here because we want to do something that we love and we want to bring Bristol a restaurant hopefully that they’re proud of, we’re proud of, and people want to come to and eat some amazing seafood that the UK is surrounded by. That’s our thing and hopefully we can come in and do what we love to do.”
For Dan, it has been about “sticking to our principles and our morals and really believing in what we want the restaurant to be… sticking to what we know and trying to do our best every day”.
With the momentum that he and his team are building, Dan hopes that Noah’s “will always remain in Bristol”.
The elephant in the room during our chat, however, is that the very building that Noah’s is in – wedged under a flyover that is part of the spaghetti of the Cumberland Basin road system – could well be demolished if the Western Harbour development ever gets built.
The restaurant on Brunel Lock Road overlooking the Cumberland Basin is situated beneath one of the roads that could be removed as part of the Western Harbour development – photo: Martin Booth
The Western Harbour masterplan unveiled by Bristol City Council earlier this year shows half a dozen blocks of flats where Noah’s currently is, with the flyover and restaurant no longer standing.
Dan is sanguine, however, about the future: “I think for me, you’ve got to say super focused, super humble and time will tell. What will be will be and I think what we have to do is just take things day by day, keep trying to build the reputation of Noah’s, keep trying to keep pushing the reputation through Bristol and hopefully further afield…
“There’s talk about the Western Harbour, no one has really put a timeframe on in but it’s been talked about for years.
“I think that now we need to take it year by year, season by season, just try and stay proactive as much as possible and I hope whatever happens, Noah’s will always remain in Bristol and I hope at this site for many years.”
Main photo: Martin Booth
This article is taken from the May/June 2025 Bristol24/7 magazine
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