The Milk Thistle (2011 onwards)
Ring the bell: the Milk Thistle years
No sign, no menu in the window, just a doorbell. For more than a decade, Quay Head House was one of the best hidden bars in the country.
In September 2011, after years of lying empty, Quay Head House opened its door again, but only if you rang the bell.
The Milk Thistle was created by the team behind Hyde & Co, the Clifton bar that helped start Bristol’s love affair with speakeasies. Here they had four floors to play with, and gave each one its own character: a ground floor bar crowded with antlers, books and a stuffed fox in a bow tie; a wood-panelled first floor lounge for members; a lighter, more modern attic for private parties; and a vault below street level that became a whisky room.
Drinks menus were bound inside antique hardback books. Much of the panelling was not part of the fit-out: photos from the mid 2000s show carved oak panelling around office desks and computer monitors. The original building survived remarkably well, including its panelling and a stained glass window, which is a large part of why the bar felt the way it did.
It became one of Bristol’s best known bars. In around 2018 it was named sixth in the first Top 50 Cocktail Bars list for the whole of the UK.
Your Milk Thistle stories
Thousands of people have proposed, celebrated, had first dates and lost entire evenings here. If you worked behind the bar, or have photos of a night out in one of the rooms, we would love to add them to the archive. Photos of how the rooms changed over the years are especially useful.
Share your Milk Thistle memory.
Sources: Bristol Culture, The Milk Thistle, 20 September 2011; Bristol24/7, Bristol cocktail bar named in UK top 10; The Pinnacle Guide, The Milk Thistle