Ragù, Bristol B3: ‘I recommend it wholly, effusively and slightly enviously’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

Some of the most skilful cooking happening anywhere in Britain right now

Ragù is a cool, minimal, romantic ode to Italian cooking that’s housed in a repurposed shipping container on Wapping Wharf in waterside Bristol. No, come back, please – don’t be scared. There are tables, chairs, napkins, reservations and all the other accoutrements of a bricks-and-mortar restaurant, even if this metal box may at some point in its existence once have been used to ship things to China and back. To my mind, Wapping Wharf has gone from strength to strength in recent years, and no longer feels at all like one of those novelty “box parks” that have about them a heavy whiff of the edgy temporary fixture. Today’s Wapping Wharf is a true independent food destination in its own right, and with a bird’s-eye view from one of Ragù’s window seats, while eating venison rump with gorgonzola dolce and sipping a booze-free vermouth, you can watch the crowds head for the likes of the modern French Lapin, Tokyo diner Seven Lucky Gods, modern British Box-E, Gurt Wings and many more; by day, there’s also a bakery, a butcher, a fromagerie and so on.

Of course, anyone who calls their sophisticated modern Italian restaurant Ragù clearly didn’t live in the UK through the 1980s. For me, as for many others, ragu will always be sold in a glass jar and advertised via caterwauling operatic ditties during the breaks on ITV’s London’s Burning: “Ragu, it brings out the Italian in you,” etc. This was back in a time when Britain’s attitude to Italian cuisine stretched, broadly speaking, as far as spag bol, though many of us were at a loss to tackle the “bol” part of that equation without Unilever’s industrially squished sieved tomatoes at 79p a jar.

Those days are long gone, however, and the evidence is clear to see at Ragù, with its crisp, lightly battered artichoke fritters with a punchy aïoli, its Hereford onglet with cipollotti onion, and its cannoli with rhubarb curd and pistachio. Ragù caters to a young-ish, knowing audience who are well aware that Britain’s current Italian dining culture was shaped by the River Cafe, Angela Hartnett and Giorgio Locatelli. Owners Mark and Karen Chapman opened Cor on North Street, Bedminster, in 2022, where they serve clever, fancy yet erring-on-the-hearty Mediterranean plates – think Catalan sausage with clams and fino butter sauce followed by tonka bean creme caramel. At Ragù, meanwhile, their focus is wholly Italian and, to my mind, this could be some of the most skilful cooking anywhere in Britain right now. I recommend the place wholly, effusively and slightly enviously of anyone who gets to taste the heavenly tiramisu made with sumptuously soggy slices of panettone before I get the chance to return.