City’s priciest restaurant set to close permanently
BRISTOL’S most-acclaimed – and expensive – restaurant has announced it is to close permanently.
Michelin-starred Casamia, based in the city’s former General Hospital in Redcliffe, said it will shut its doors in August. In recent years it has served 20-course tasting meals, which cost £180, before drinks.
Amid a cost-of-living crisis diners could potentially be losing their appetite for such extravagance, while the restaurant has also been hit by the inflationary pressures all restaurants are facing.
In a statement posted on Instagram, executive chef Zak Hitchman announced: “For reasons out of my hands Casamia will be closing permanently on August 20.
“I have very mixed feelings about this, part of me likes that it couldn’t exist for long as it fits the concept of rip it up and start again, it would obviously be great if we weren’t all out of a job though.
“I don’t know that a restaurant quite like this will exist again, and we won’t be going out quietly, so come and see it before we close.”
The restaurant started life as a trattoria in Westbury-on-Trym with Peter Sanchez-Iglesias, now the chef-patron, running the kitchen.
He told Big Hospitality that rapidly increasing costs had made the business “financially unviable” and that “losing just a few covers per service is often the difference between making a profit and making a loss”.
It is reported that the SanchezIglesias family plan to open a more casual restaurant at the same Lower Guinea Street site as soon as this Christmas.
Casamia has long been viewed not only as one of Bristol’s finest restaurants but one of the finest in the UK. It is often named among the country’s best places to eat in renowned guides and at respected awards ceremonies, from Harden’s to the National Restaurant Awards.
Last year our sister website Bristol Live reviewed an experience there, describing it as “as much a dazzling theatrical show or performance as it is a restaurant meal”.
It’s widely considered to be Bristol’s most expensive meal, with a 20-course tasting menu priced at £180 plus an extra £120 for optional wine pairing.
Reflecting on the restaurant’s journey, Zak wrote on Instagram: “In
August 2020 we ripped up Casamia’s rule book and started fresh. We created an unconventional restaurant, serving 20 courses of food like you’ve never had before, soundtracked by an eclectic mix of music played through a ridiculous sound system.
“We were determined to keep evolving, so we quickly became a very creative space, taking on influence more from gigs, film and theatre, than restaurants we’d been to. We filled Casamia with graffiti, record sleeve menus, neon lighting, strobes, and projectors showing interesting and peculiar cinematography.
“Most importantly we created a restaurant filled with a team enjoying themselves. We kept the same core team through Covid, and there is no way Casamia would be the same without any one of us.”