Dining Review: Basil and Bunny in Bristol

Bunny Mak and fries. Photography by Angel Tucker

Bristol Industrial Park — which also goes by Unity Park — has quickly become a hub for independently owned food and drink depots. Anchored by Pivotal Brewing Company and Brick Pizza Co., it’s a clay, stone and steel neighborhood that declares, in every corner, that happiness always comes down to a good plate of food or a cold pint of beer. And in most cases, the delivery of this rapture comes in a manufacturing plant package: massive ductwork, towering walls of brick, slick concrete floors. 

That is, until you get to Basil & Bunny. The plant-based brainchild of Lyslie and Mathiew Medeiros, the cafe-style restaurant looks like you’ve wandered into Martha Stewart’s she-shed, replete with plants, washed in white paint and covered in floral wallpaper. Perhaps it’s just hyper-oxygenated from all the cascading greenery, but the space is an oasis of good intentions, remaking the American diet one burger at a time.  

The inviting interior of Basil & Bunny. Photography by Angel Tucker

There are always two ways to go in a vegan restaurant: strictly vegetables or an appeal to people who refuse to give up fast food. Basil & Bunny has taken the latter approach, reworking drive-thru favorites into a Green Party platform. Burgers ($12-$15) are stacked high and housemade seitan fried “chicken” is served Buffalo-style and inside a hunny mustard “chicky” wrap, alongside an array of beer and wine choices (mimosas on Sundays) that define the vegan life as a party in the making.  

The revelry takes place in thirty-two indoor seats and an equal number on the patio, all of which are designed — like the food — to appeal as much in aesthetics as flavor. And the bottom line is that the signature burger, the Bunny Mak, looks like the real thing. More impressively, it’s at least as good. When it comes down to it, the iconic American sandwich is built on two things: an amalgam of textures and flavors that creates something greater than its parts, and — this is offered with both love and regret — salt.  

Part of what we love about the legends of casual food is that, ironically, the salt dominates everything else and we’re obsessively drawn back for more. By forfeiting that mainstay, Basil & Bunny leans heavily into the belief that meat is the least important part of a sandwich and it’s hard to argue with a combo of lettuce, pickles, onions, “Fancy Sauce” — a nod to Step Brothers — and “cheeze” (note the z) that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Kraft slices of yesteryear. To make the metamorphosis complete, there are two varieties of buns (sesame seed and brioche) that are the spitting image of old-school, Wonder-era, golden arches nostalgia.  

Korean Ooo-Mami and chimichurri cauliflower burrito bowl. Photography by Angel Tucker

Of course, some items do snap you out of the fast-food trance. The fries alone ($6) are absolutely contenders. Loaded with cashew cheese, or dusted with Old Bay and house garlic aioli, they’re still mind-bending ($9). Ordered nacho style ($12) with a green bean-laced chili, they’re proof that we are not in Kansas, as we knew it, anymore. 

Desserts live somewhere in between the two worlds: full of sugar but always tied to a fruit of some sort. Think MMMBop-Tarts with seasonally rotating flavors, hummingbird cake with banana and pineapple, cake jars layered with passion fruit or lemon bars that jiggle with citric abandon. It’s a kinder, gentler pathway to plant-based living, and one that doesn’t ask for a forfeiture of culture to make the transition.  

MMMBop-Tart. Photography by Angel Tucker

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BASIL & BUNNY

500 Wood St., Bristol, 490-1918, basilandbunny.com

Open for lunch and dinner Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. on Sunday. Some lot parking.

Must Get: Bunny Mak and fries, anything in a bowl.