Cool Place of the Day: River Cottage Canteen, Bristol

Every day, a new place to discover or explore from coolplaces.co.uk

Bristol’s Balloon Fiesta continues this weekend and we can’t think of a better time to be in the city. But you are going to need something to eat, and you could do worse than visit River Cottage Canteen, part of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s small mainly West Country chain, which maintains his farm-to-fork ethos food using fresh, local and seasonal produce.

You may feel this is a concept that has been done to death (indeed it’s hard to find a restaurant anywhere these days that doesn't crow about using local suppliers), but HFW is the original and the best, and has bravely stuck to his guns when opening new branches.

The building is crucial too. This one is a converted church, and provides a suitably big, open and dramatic stage for what is a relaxed, family-friendly restaurant serving a combination of yummy dishes using the best local and always proudly English ingredients – Portland crab, Cornish squid, English buffalo mozzarella – served as small or large dishes. Think steamed Fowey mussels or a rose veal burger with cheddar for lunch, homemade chorizo followed by venison ragu and pasta for dinner. And lots of fresh vegetables to go with it. Oh, and in common with the other HFW places they do a range of roasts on Sunday, including a variety of options for those of the vegetarian persuasion. We reckon it’s one of the best places to eat in this part of Bristol, but quite honestly we'd recommend it wherever you are in town: it really is that good.

Cool Places is a website from the creators of Rough Guides and Cool Camping, suggesting the best places to stay, eat, drink and shop in Britain (coolplaces.co.uk)