1. Al Bab Mansour
You'll find it in the thick of St Nicholas Market, or St Nick's as we call it in Brizzol: part Georgian arcade, part bazaar and a popular munch spot for city workers, thanks to an array of foodie stalls such as this one. In a tiny hot kitchen, a band of north African cooks produces generous plates of traditional Moroccan food: tender boneless chicken marinated in lemon and spices and served with rice or couscous (£5.95), lamb tagine (£6.50), or bean and spinach casserole served with a hunk of bread (£4.50). You can eat on tables "outside" (it's a covered arcade) or in a mini souk, decked with textiles, mosaics and brass. Takeaways available. Eat there on a Wednesday and you can double up with a visit to the farmer's market on Corn Street.
• St Nicholas Market, Corn Street. Open from 12-4pm Monday-Saturday, closed Sundays.
2. Krishna Inn
It doesn't look much, with its plastic-wood cafe interior, but to my mind it's one of the most authentic south Indian restaurants this side of Tooting. These guys serve hot, fragrant Malabar dishes: Kerala fish curry cooked in tamarind (£6.95), mango and sweet banana curry (£3.50), and coconut rice (£2.50). The masala dosa (a crisp rice-flour pancake, wider than the plate, wrapped around a dollop of potato curry and served with spicy sambar sauce and green coconut chutney) is as good as any you'd see in Kochi, and almost as cheap, at £3.95. One little niggle: the service charge is a bit cheeky. Takeaways available.
• Fish curries from £6.95, meat dishes from £4.95, veg curries from £2.95.
4 Byron Place, Clifton. +44 (0)117 927 9255. Open 11am-3pm and 6pm-11pm, daily.
3. One Stop Thali Cafe
Bristol seems to specialise in independent micro-chains. This one started 10 years ago, first bringing Indian street food to the festival crowd and then to muesli-belt Montpelier, north of the city centre. There are now four cafes – two others are in Easton and Totterdown, and a fourth has opened recently in posh Clifton Village. Aside from the latter's "Bollywood Style" cocktail bar, each follows a set formula: a choice of thalis (southern, with fish curry and lentil dahl, or northern, with tarka dahl and mutter paneer), served with rice, raita and salad on a traditional steel plate in a Hindi-colonial setting (fringed lamps, elephants, vivid pinks). Their USP, however, is a neat tiffin takeaway service: you pay £22 for your first tiffin meal (including a stack of four stainless steel dishes), and come back whenever you want a refill: three hot curries and rice, enough for two, cost £7.
• Eat-in thalis: veg (£6.95), fish (£7.95). York Road, Montpelier + 44(0)117 942 6687), St Mark Road, Easton (0117 951 4979), William Street, Totterdown (0117 933 2955), Regent Street, Clifton. www.onestopthali.co.uk
4. The H Bar
Like a ballgown at a funeral, the gilded Colston Hall foyer – a loud, gold-clad new extension to the city's largest concert venue – seems rather out of keeping with the economic climate, but the food in the ground-floor H Bar is easy on the pocket. Newly opened, and run by Humberto Benevenuto (the man behind the popular Bocabar in south Bristol), this cafe-bar offers Mediterranean dishes, tapas and Latino music in a well-dressed corner of this lofty public space. All the dishes on the menu (fresh pasta of the day, chargrilled vegetables with buffalo mozzarella, pan-fried tiger prawns and mango salsa) are fresh, authentic and under a fiver.
• Tapas from £2.50. Open daily, 9am-11pm (food served until 8pm); +44 (0)117 352 1151, www.thehbar.co.uk
5. Severnshed
Right on the waterfront of the floating harbour, this is a former boathouse designed, it is said, by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Clad in boaty timbers and furnished with cast iron pillars, a stainless steel hover bar and a decked verandah, it is perfect for watching the world float by. If you like a quiet night out, avoid Saturdays, when it doubles as a busy, noisy cocktail bar, but for a bargain check in for the £5 lunch. Or get there before 7pm and order two courses for £9.50. Both offers come from the Brunel menu, a choice of 10 modern European dishes that are fresh, seasonal and good value. The autumn offering includes tartare of mackerel with horseradish cream, roasted chicken with apple mash and a celery, cucumber and crème fraiche sauce, and jerk-seasoned crisp pork belly.
• The Grove, Harbourside. Open daily, 12pm-midnight. + 44(0)117 9251212, shedrestaurants.co.uk
6. Tobacco Factory
Saved from demolition by the architect George Ferguson (former president of RIBA), this eatery is just a small corner of the vast WD & HO Wills fag factory, which was reduced to rubble in 1999. Central to the regeneration of the North Street area, which is now lined with deli and cafes, the old factory has become a busy complex: offices, a theatre, a dance studio, a Sunday market and two restaurants – Teohs (cheap and cheerful pan-Asian diner), and this, Ferguson's own cafe-bar. In a functional, exposed-brick space with an open kitchen behind a long bar, it serves Mediterranean tapas and bar snacks from £2.50 and main meals from £7.50. Wash it down with real ales from the nearby Bristol Beer Factory – another Ferguson enterprise.
• Piquillo peppers, pine nuts and goat's cheese salad, £6.50; spiced lamb matzalan with aromatic tomato sauce and rice, £9.50. Food available 12-3pm daily; 5.30pm-9pm, Monday-Thursday; Saturday until 9.30pm; Sunday until 8.30pm. Raleigh Road, Southville. + 44(0)117 902 0060, tobaccofactory.com
7. The Magnet
A bog-standard south-of-the-river Bristol chippy, you might think. But the Magnet claims the unusual distinction of having hosted a live gig of Badly Drawn Boy: it was included in a shortlist of 10 chip shops to provide a fish-frying stage for the launch of Damon Gough's 2007 album Born in the UK. Such an event is unlikely to happen again, of course, but the chips, as they say in Bristol, are "gert lush", and they're now cooked in vegetable oil instead of dripping.
• Haddock and chips £5, large cod and chips £5.80, home-made fish cake £1.10. Open 12-2pm and 5.30-10.30pm, Monday-Friday. 55 Dean Lane, Southville. + 44(0)117 963 6444.
8. John's York Cafe
There are few proper greasy-spoons left in the centre of Bristol, but the good old York Cafe has survived – albeit as a born-again version of the original, which was forced to close after 80 years when the building that housed it in Clifton nearly collapsed. The restaurant reopened in 2007 in Bond Street in front of four lanes of thundering traffic, close to the Cabot Circus shopping centre. But if the atmosphere isn't exactly the same, the new cafe, just like the old one, offers long, ketchup-coloured Formica tables, railway-cream walls, and a menu of classic home-made cafe fare: full English breakfasts from £3.90, roast dinners with roast spuds and Yorkshires for £4.90, crumble and custard for £1.90 and big mugs of builders' tea.
• Monster Yorkie breakfast (meat or veggie) £5.50, daily specials (such as beef stew) £4.20. Open Monday-Friday 7am-3pm, Saturday 7am-4pm, Sunday 8am-4pm. 46 Bond Street, Broadmead. + 44(0)117 929 0101, theyorkcafe.co.uk
9. Pieminister
They make 35,000 pies a week – some for Waitrose and Sainsbury's, others for delis and gastro pubs as far afield as Aberdeen. But, like Wallace and Gromit and Banksy, Pieminister was born in Bristol. The kitchen has moved out to the burbs, but the original pie shop remains much as it was when it first opened in 2003. You can eat out (hot or cold takeaway pies) or in (on rustic cafe tables) from a simple menu offering nine pies, among them the Moo Pie (British beef steak, real ale and herbs), the Thai Chook (spicy chicken with sweet potato and lime) and the veggie Wildshroom (wild mushroom and asparagus). All are made from fresh produce and free-range meat, and packed inside a sturdy crust of butter-rich pastry. Mmmmm, pie.
• Pies from £3.25; pie, mash and gravy from £5.25. Stokes Croft, BS1 3PR. +44 (0)117 942 9372, pieminister.co.uk. Monday-Saturday 11am-7pm; Sunday 10am-5pm.
10. The Cafe at St Werburghs City Farm
Housed in a curious building, fashioned out of carved wood and seemingly straight out of The Hobbit, this inner-city cafe makes use of the fresh, seasonal produce – pork, lamb, eggs, fresh greens – that are grown, or reared, almost literally on its doorstep. The autumn menu features a roasted pumpkin, red pepper and Welsh goat's cheese burrito, served with tabouleh salad and fresh salsa (£5.95); or free-range beef burgers with roasted potato wedges, coleslaw and home-made relish (£6.95). Many of the dishes are available in children's sizes, and kids love it here: not only is it chocolate brownie heaven, but there's a play area, as well as access to the pens of goats, sheep, hens, piggies – and, on occasions, piglets.
• Soup of the day with crusty bread £3.50, lunches from £5.95. Open 10am–4pm daily, except Tuesdays. Watercress Road, St Werburghs, +44 (0)117 9428241. swcityfarm.org.uk
• Bristol, Bath and Somerset are hosting 80 events during October's Celebration of Food, including cider and foraging events and Eat out for £10 offers at several top-end restaurants
