The story
Wilsons is a Modern British restaurant at 24 Chandos Rd, Redland, Bristol, BS6 6PF, and it holds a Michelin star in 2026. Jan Ostle and Mary Wilson opened it in 2016, and the kitchen still works close to the soil.
Ostle trained in kitchens including The Square and The Hand & Flowers. Wilson grew up in her family's West London restaurant and trained in biodynamic agriculture. She oversees the two-acre market garden in Barrow Gurney, about 20 minutes from the restaurant. It supplies the vegetables and herbs, and the menu is rewritten each week around what is harvested and what was preserved earlier in the year.
A six-course tasting menu runs alongside a cheaper menu du jour that includes a glass of wine. The Good Food Guide's 2026 write-up singles out lightly cooked monkfish with grilled celeriac, onion and fig leaf. It also praises mallard with beetroot and rhubarb under a January King cabbage leaf, and a tarte tatin with bay-leaf ice cream.
The whitewashed dining room seats 24, with a blackboard for the chalked-up tasting menu and antlers mounted over the kitchen. Bread comes from Wilson's Bread Shop, the bakery the couple opened two doors along in 2022. The National Restaurant Awards ranked Wilsons 32nd in 2026, a position that rests on cooking this local and this keenly priced.
Recognition
Ambience
Details
History
High quality cooking
Locals wandering down Chandos Road have become accustomed to Wilsons' stained glass sign adorned with stylised cauliflowers, leeks, onions and peppers – their colours glowing vividly whenever the Redland sun shines. The sign is, in fact, rather old: a family heirloom inherited by current owner Mary Wilson, rescued from a restaurant of the same name that operated in west London some decades ago. Nonetheless, it serves as a fitting mission statement for the modern establishment it now advertises, with the emphasis on bright flavours, bright ideas – and, above all, fresh produce. Wilsons has grown steadily in stature since 2016 – thanks in part to its smallholding, which sits under the flight path to Bristol Airport, and now supplies all vegetables and herbs for the restaurant. Meanwhile, the small, whitewashed dining room is sparsely adorned, apart from a blackboard listing the chalked-up tasting menu and a pair of antlers mounted over the kitchen – where head chef Jan Ostle's own creativity takes flight. Our visit opened with a tiny, tangy portion of rich red mullet and clementine soup, swiftly succeeded by bread from Wilsons' bakery next door, accompanied by moreish buttermilk pheasant and light-as-air taramasalata. There was the faintest foretaste of spring in a dish of sea bass with parsley, labneh and wild garlic ‘capers’, and midwinter comfort in the standout serving of lightly cooked monkfish, grilled celeriac, onion and fig leaf. Punchy, gamey flavours predominated, not least in a ‘very red’ combo of perfectly cooked mallard, beetroot and rhubarb, all half-hidden beneath a January King cabbage leaf. A few pilgrims come for Wilsons’ sublime signature dessert of tarte tatin with bay-leaf ice cream, but many more are attracted by the prospect of a neighbourhood restaurant that delivers against so many metrics: affable staff, green credentials and a thoughtfully assembled wine list – plus a kitchen that knows precisely when to surprise and when to satisfy its customers with value as well as quality.
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