by Louis Hessey-Antell. Find Louis on Instagram here.
**Please note: Nepali Chulo invited Breaks and Bites in, and paid for our food and drink. This in no way impacted our opinion. We were not obliged to write a positive review, and Nepali Chulo didn’t see this review before publication.**
There are restaurants you eat at, and restaurants you arrive at. Nepali Chulo is firmly the latter. Jenice is a great host (sorry if I spelt that incorrectly), and he also runs Broken Dock by the waterfront with the cheapest pints in central Bristol apart from Wetherspoons. You step in off Gloucester Road and immediately feel that gentle recalibration of pace: the clatter of the city drops away, the air warms, the spices start whispering before anything lands on the table. This isn’t just “Nepalese inspired”. It isn’t pan-Asian wallpaper. No, it’s a place that has confidence in its own cuisine.
The menu is quite large, but not confused; more like a well-stocked notebook than a scatter-gun approach. The momos arrive first, as they should. Plump, glossy, neatly pleated, like they’ve been taught some basic manners. They sit in their bamboo basket around a bowl of chutney that is bright, sharp, and properly alive. One bite and you’re already awake. Then there’s the beer. Gurkha Lager. Tall, cold, unapologetically golden and poured with the reverence it deserves. It’s not trying to impress you, it’s just doing its job extremely well.
The mains come out in proper metal thali plates. Food that looks like it has somewhere to be. Rice neatly domed (a slightly contentious choice amongst chefs and foodies alike), crisp papad leaning like a roof tile, while the dark, glossy meat gives up willingly from a long, slow cook. The sauces are rich, layered, and complex. Nothing shouts. Nothing rushes. You can simply taste everything in there. Alongside this is a warming dal, similarly homely, but not short on flavour, while a plain little cucumber salad and some more chutney finish the whole platter off.
What I loved most was the quiet authority of the place. The spices on the table (cumin, chilli, salt) presented plainly, almost humbly, as if to say, ‘we’ve already sorted out the finishing touches for you’. The room hums, rather than buzzes, with families, couples, and regulars who clearly know what they’re ordering before the menus land before them.
Nepali Chulo doesn’t just deliver a local dose of Asian hospitality; it nails it. There’s warmth without fuss, generosity without excess, and flavour without too much gimmickry. It feels rooted, not just culturally, but emotionally in the proprietor’s homeland; a restaurant that knows who it is, where it’s from, and why it’s here. You leave full, calm, and slightly better behaved than when you arrived.
Would highly recommend.
Louis Hessey-Antell
8/10