FOOD & DRINK

TASTY TIDBITS FROM THE CITY’S BEST RESTAURANTS, CHEFS AND PRODUCERS

Innovative new funding scheme awards £60k to help community projects fight food insecurity

Bristol Local Food Fund has awarded £60,000 to 18 community food projects across the city using a forwardthinking approach known as participatory grantmaking to ensure money reaches those most in need.

First conceived during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Bristol Local Food Fund aims to create a new and more accessible source of funding for community food projects that are tackling food insecurity in the city.

BANK restaurant starts Spring afresh with all-new menu

Bristol’s much-loved restaurant BANK is starting Spring afresh with an allnew menu, offering fire-cooked sharing plates. The Totterdown-based, independent restaurant has welcomed a new and bespoke fire kitchen, which has inspired the refreshed menu.

BANK’s expert kitchen team, led by former head chef at The Ox, Seven Lucky Gods and Four Wise Monkeys, Jack Briggs-Horan, has been busy curating the new menu over several months. The addition of the fire kitchen has led to a delectable, seasonal menu, which will be available noon ‘til night. The new offering will focus on a single and curated menu of seasonal and local produce, cooked over roaring flames, imbuing the ingredients with a flavour, scorch and smoke that only comes from cooking with fire.

For the first time since opening, BANK will also be offering up delicious roast dinners with artisan ingredients sourced locally. Available every Sunday –roasts will be cooked over open flame on the bespoke kitchen setup. The new BANK menu will be available from 2 March and will be offering 25% off lunch on the first Thursday and Friday.

• bankbristol.com

Crosstown opens Bristol store

Crosstown has opened the doors to its fourth permanent location outside of London, on 21 Queens Street. Best known for creating the world’s first sourdough doughnuts, Crosstown has established itself as an award-winning premium sweet treat destination. The Bristol store gives customers the full Crosstown experience of eating in with an upstairs seating area, options to grab a doughnut and coffee to go, scoops of its smallbatch ice cream, pre-ordering for collection, and placing an order for on-demand delivery to their doorstep in under an hour.

What’s more, on Friday 3 March, Crosstown is giving back to the community by donating 50% of its trade from that day to local charity, Help Bristol’s Homeless.

• crosstown.co.uk

The volunteer team behind the project raised the money through a city-wide crowdfunding campaign which concluded at the end of 2021. The crowdfunder was supported by over 500 donors, with rewards offered by nearly 50 Bristol food businesses, including Harts Bakery, Better Food, Wiper and True, Bristol Squeezed and Essential Trading. The campaign was also boosted by some larger donations, including a £10,000 match-fund from international UK law firm Burges Salmon.

At the heart of the fund is its use of participatory grantmaking (PGM), which gives decision-making power over how and where the grants are distributed to people who have direct lived experience of food insecurity.

To deliver this, Bristol Local Food Fund recruited a Citizens Panel of people with lived experience of food insecurity. The panel developed the fund criteria, reviewed the applications and made the final funding decisions. There were 41 applications to the fund, totalling £178,000 out of which the panel selected 18 projects to offer support.

Organisers are now exploring opportunities with Bristol’s food and business community to grow the fund and help make a positive long-term impact on food insecurity in Bristol.

• bristollocalfoodfund.com