Features / Restaurants
Restaurant owner optimistic despite false reports of closure
There cannot be much worse news for a restaurant owner to read than a story about your business closing when in fact it remains very much open.
That was what happened to Steak of the Art founder Steve Bowen but he remains remarkably sanguine about the reports of his restaurant’s death being greatly exaggerated, to misquote Mark Twain.
Steak of the Art continues to welcome diners within the Harbourside and its exterior has been revealed again in all its glory having been hidden behind scaffolding for more than a year due to cladding issues in the building it occupies.
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Its sister restaurant in Cardiff may be no more but the original here on Cathedral Walk continues to quietly serve some of the best steak in the city within this unique restaurant-cum-gallery.
On a recent evening when I visited with my family, we enjoyed an excellent meal with impeccable service; but it was just a shame to see it so quiet.
Within a slightly bonkers interior, we devoured expertly cooked steaks – flat iron, rump and sirloin – and the addition of delicious starters such as burnt ends and tempura squid.
Unsurprisingly, Steak of the Art specialises in steak – photo: Martin Booth
Bowen said the false news stories about the closure of Steak of the Art in Bristol were “incredibly frustrating” but they prompted him and his small team to “fight like mad” to make it clear that they remain open
Engagement on social media is up but Bowen admits that “trying to translate that into into bums on seat is continuing to be a challenge”.
There is a new lunchtime express menu – £12.95 per person including a drink – and cuts of meat from the pork family as well as more traditional beef joints, such as the toma-pork rather than the tomahawk.
“We’re working hard to introduce price points that are slightly more palatable than than some of the beef price points,” Bowen tells me.
“Beef in the UK is horrendously expensive to buy at the moment not just for the consumer in the shop,” adds Bowen, who is now paying double the price for beef than he did when the restaurant opened 13 years ago.
The interior of Steak of the Art is certainly not minimalist, with a number of different themed areas – photo: Martin Booth
When Steak of the Art opened in 2012, it was just after M&S Food had left Millennium Promenade a few hundred yards away.
Since than, Steak of the Art has remained one of the few constants in an area that Bowen had originally envisaged as potentially being “a food and drink hub for Bristol”.
There is still PizzaExpress nearby, and Las Iguanas the other side of Millennium Square, with BrewDog opposite also doing food, but this corner of our city has never been the sort of foodie destination that Wapping Wharf has become.
“We’re very proud to be one of the longest running restaurants in Bristol,” Bowen adds.
“We opened in the Harbourside because we had some faith and that it would maintain a customer base for us.
“We lost a lot of customers through the scaffolding issue and through the incorrect reporting of the fact that we closed, and we also acknowledge that cost of living is a challenge.
“But what we’re hoping is that the people that used to come to us we will start to come back and will be pleasantly surprised.”
Main photo: Martin Booth
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