Lobster Kitchen - Disappointing.

Name: Lobster Kitchen

Where: 111 Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3NQ, http://www.lobsterkitchen.co.uk

Cost: lobster roll including a soft drink & side priced from £15 to £19, whole lobster + side at £19, lobster tails at £17.50, sides from £3.50 to £7.50. Beers priced at £4.50 and wines from £23.50.

About: Opened on Tuesday, the 28th October 2014 by friends Abigail Tan and Valeria Cinaglia, Lobster Kitchen is located next door to the infamous YMCA just off Tottenham Court Road. Inspired by New England’s lobster shacks dotted along the Maine Coast of the US, this new London restaurant serves lobster in a variety of different ways.

Lobster Kitchen takes no reservations and most tables are communal. With only one cash register (diners pay on ordering before eating), on the Friday evening we attended, there was a lengthy queue and finding a seat was tricky. Still, if you would like to brave these, November is a good month to do so as the restaurant is offering 50% off food for those joining their Claw Club, details here.

The décor evokes a maritime theme with lobster traps hanging from the ceiling and other fishermen’s paraphernalia. The overall look is busy and cluttered in my opinion, which does not help considering this is a relatively small one-room restaurant.

Lobster Kitchen is a casual eatery more akin to a café than a restaurant – think communal tables, plastic cutlery and cups, disposable food containers.

What We Ate: The Garlicky One lobster roll (£15) was served in a fluffy, soft hot-dog style bap, rather than a toasted brioche as advertised, it had plenty of lobster meat in it, but sadly lacked flavour, seasoning and most oddly garlic.

A marginally better option was The Cocktail lobster roll (£15) – the Mary Rose sauce (brandy, Tabasco, Worcester sauce, mayo and ketchup) lifted the flavour of the lobster but tasted straight out of a jar.

We also ordered two lobster tails – The Garlicky One (£17.50) had the same problem as its sister roll – it lacked seasoning.

The Thermidor (£17.50) with bechamel, cheese, herbs was the best lobster dish we had although it could have done with a little more sauce. The ultimate flaw however for both tails was that they were tough despite being almost raw in parts. Odd.

To accompany our rolls and tails we had three sides – of the fries (£3.50), there is little I can say about them but that they tasted pre-manufactured.

The lobster Mac n’ Cheese (£5.50) was the greatest disappointment – stodgy, floury and with little if any cheese flavour. A lost opportunity here, and one I really hope they will take a fresh look at.

The Deep Fried Clams (£7.50) were tiny little things, tasting and looking more like cockles. Deep-fried and very crunchy, they were surprisingly well seasoned with salt and chillies, and with a lovely kick to them.

What We Drank: We shared a bottle of Albariño by Domingo Martin from Spain (£28). Retailing at around £11 a bottle, this was a young, fruity wine but nothing else.

Likes: central London location.

Dislikes: the lobster mac n’ cheese was the greatest disappointment, as were the rolls and tails – the meat was tough, lacking in flavour and underseasoned. I may be mistaken but I thought some menu items were mis-described – baps for brioche, cockles for clams. In addition to the quality of the ingredients, the pricing also needs to be looked at – a similar restaurant also opened last week and (reviewed here) prices their lobster rolls at £7 to £9, so I question the value of Lobster Kitchen’s 50% discount.

Verdict: It’s very early days for Lobster Kitchen - there are quite a few issues to be ironed out post-soft launch week, and I sincerely hope they will be. I would have loved to love this restaurant, but on the basis of my visit, I cannot recommend it.

Smack Lobster Roll Deli - The Fast-Fine Dining Concept Arrives in London!

Name: Smack Lobster Roll Deli

Address: 26-28 Binney Street, London, W1K 5BN (the website is still under construction - you can follow them on Twitter or Instagram at @smacklobster)

Cost: Lobster rolls from £7 to £9, sides from £3 to £4.80, beers and wines at £4 and lemonade at £2.50.

About: Yesterday saw the press launch of Smack Lobster Roll Deli, the new fast-fine dining concept from the Goodman Restaurant Group, creators of Burger & Lobster.

Smack will be open to the public on the 3rd November 2014 serving a range of signature lobster rolls, ready prepared whole chick lobsters and sides including courgette fries and lobster chowder.

Diners can either take their options away, or eat in the premises. There is a large basement area to dine in. This has been elegantly designed in plain concrete with eye-catching visual projections, wooden stools and bar tables.

I enjoyed a sneak peek of some of Smack’s offerings last night and if this launch event is anything to go by, I heartily recommend a visit.

What We Ate: The lobster rolls were made with a rich, hot brioche, buttered and toasted, they were filled to the brim with large chunks of lobsters in different flavours. All rolls will be priced between £7 and £9 each. The flavours on offer yesterday were:

Chick Lobster Chunks with Garlicky Mayo

Californian – lettuce, tomato, cucumber, avocado and avocado mayo with lime.

Happy Ending – Japanese mayo, fish sauce, coriander, shredded napa cabbage.

Seven Samurai – tempura lobster, Japanese mayo and cabbage, cucumber, pickled ginger, spring onions and togarashi spice.

Spicy Mexican – spicy mayo, gherkins, lettuce.

The rolls I tried were delicious – the buttered brioche really made a difference here – neither too soft nor too hard, it was a perfect casing for the lobster meat. I also loved the very different flavours of each roll, the menu choices are set to be changed periodically.

The star of the show however in my opinion was their sides – the courgette fries (small £3/large £3.60) were outstandingly good, possibly the best I have ever tried – coated in Japanese panko breadcrumbs and deep-fried, they were crispy and utterly scrumptious. The courgette fries warrant a visit to Smack on their own right!

The Lobster Chowder (small £3.60/large £4.80) was also excellent – the bisque was creamy and bejeweled with large chuncks of lobster. I can’t think of a better winter warmer!

What We Drank: Alcoholic drinks are all on tap and priced at £4.  We started with a 125ml glass of SanMartino Vino Frizzante Bianco (white sparkling wine), which in my opinion was nothing to write home about. Better were the beers options, all served on 2/3 pint glasses - an American “Soundwave West Coast IPA” (5.6%) had wonderful refreshing hoppy flavours, but my favourite was the English “Undercurrent Pale Ale” (4.5%) which went magnificently well with all the rolls we tried. Two other wine options are also available (white - Trebbiano or red - Sangiovese) as well as lemonade (£2.50).

Likes: the lobster rolls were to die for, the buttery brioche was incredible, but it was the courgette fries that really did it for me, they were amazing. Very good value food and drinks menus.

Dislikes: the menu estates that alcoholic drinks are only to be consumed outside the premises. This was not the case at yesterday’s press launch, but if true, I would hope they will sort out their alcohol license pretty soon.

Verdict: Lobster rolls like you have never tried before + the best courgette fries in town, make Smack Lobster Roll Deli a must to any respectable London foodie. Go, go, go before prices are hiked up. Highly recommended.

Two-Michelin Starred Chef Michael Wignall Ends the #MeetTheMichelins Series at Selfridges

Words & Photography by Florentyna Leow and Luiz Hara

Chef Michael Wignall from the 2-Michelin starred restaurant The Latymer at the Penny Hill Park Hotel, took center stage in the final installment of the #MeetTheMichelins dinner series at Selfridges’ The Corner Restaurant. The #MeetTheMichelin series was designed to promote some of the UK’s finest British chefs operating outside of London. Chef Wignall describes his cooking as “complex and carefully crafted,” and this meal was no exception -  his multi-course extravaganza (priced at £95, with an additional £45 for the wine flight) certainly ended the #MeetTheMichelin series on a high note.

The hors d'oeuvres were delicious and displayed a strong sense of creativity and technical skill. These left us wondering and wanting more: a small tube of seaweed-like paste on a toothpick, innocuous but full of umami; and a crisp cigar-like wafer tube filled with a buttery cream that tasted of the ocean, with bitter, chocolaty cocoa nibs to bring it into focus.

Our meal opened with Cornish mackerel, the humble fish tricked out with all manner of fanciful accents - an oily, salty burst of Belgian Oscietra caviar, cool and crunchy compressed cucumber, sweet shredded crab meat, subtle edamame and wasabi cream, mysterious light green smoky bouncy spheres, little dots of intensely lemony confit. The flavours generally worked well together, particularly with the crisp, lemony K5 Argiñano Txakolina from the Basque region, and the presentation was stunning.

Tender salt-baked celeriac followed the fish. Garnishes of compressed and nitro’d apple strips had the texture of black fungus (often used in Chinese cooking), and the combination of chilled pea juice, peas and homemade ricotta and feta brought summer to life on a plate. This was good, accompanied by a crisp, fresh New Hall Bacchus Reserve.

Wignall’s poached loin of Loire valley rabbit is much feted at his restaurant, but I found it a little too soft for my liking, and the whole concoction of milky polenta, braised Scotch oats and soft meat cried out in my opinion for a crisp or crunchy contrasting texture. The mushrooms however were quite divine - fragrant and earthy, utterly delicious with a glass of berry-laden 2011 Barda Patagonian Pinot Noir (Bodegas Chacra).

Olive oil-poached hake - one of my favourites of the night - felt like a more substantial course, with an accompanying cassoulet of summer beans, charcoal and scallop emulsion. Atop the grilled scallop were strips of Iberico lard, which melted underneath the heat of the grill, infusing the scallop with an extra salty-creamy dimension. Davies served up a Cellers Anima Negra from Majorca, which complemented the smokiness of the charcoal emulsion beautifully.

The ‘piglet’ course was another favourite, with some great flavour combinations - for instance luscious sweet and sour sweetbreads, or a ‘hen of the woods’ in a spicy BBQ sauce evoking summer time outdoor grilling. The only fly in the amber in my opinion was the cep-scented pork fillet - which I found underwhelming and under seasoned. The Portuguese Pan Vinha however was delicious.

A ‘savoury’ is not a course you see often these days, but Wignall reinterpreted the traditional British cheese course with modern flourishes such as pickle spheres - think liquidised Branston pickle bubbles - and atomised vinegar, which accounted for the bracingly sour scent wafting around our plates. The cheeses were uniformly well chosen, and Davies threw us yet another curve ball by pairing them with the Atlantic Pale Ale from Brixton Brewery. This IPA-style drink worked well with cheese.

Drinks before dessert came in the form of Pimms, ‘Our Way’ - a layered concoction involving foamed cubes of fruit, shaved iced cucumber, strawberries and sweet cream. This was a clever take on the quintessential British summer cocktail, and one all of us thoroughly enjoyed.

Our desserts featured ‘Cherry’ and ‘Raspberry’ respectively. 'Cherry' saw vanilla dough (essentially a large holed doughnut) and a gorgeously dense and smooth rectangular tile of Tahitian vanilla custard, with a few syrup-poached cherries, as well as almonds and crumble-crunch for texture. That alone sent me into a mild swooning fit, but the divinely golden sweet and floral Helmut Lang Gelber Muskateller Eiswein elevated this course to heavenly heights. The choice of dessert wine here was faultless.

Unfortunately, ‘Raspberry’ felt a little lacking in comparison - I have lukewarm feelings at best about berries and chocolate in the same dish, and this did little to change my mind. The individual components of raspberry namelaka/jelly, micro cocoa sponge and aero chocolate were delicious, but I felt that together they were less than the sum of their parts. Luckily, the accompanying wine - Alta Alella Mataro Dolce, a sweet and rich but not too heavy Spanish vin doux naturelle - helped end the meal on a good note.

As with the previous dinners, we were well taken care of by the superb waiting staff at The Corner Restaurant, particularly the knowledgeable and lovely Mino, who attended us week after week. Service was, as usual, impeccable and unobtrusive. Selfridges’ sommelier Dawn Davies also worked her magic again, mixing and matching wines to each course with an inventive flair.

I was impressed that Chef Michael Wignall does not seem to belong to the breed of chefs who are more interested in PR than cooking; it certainly felt like he was giving his food the attention it deserved. This was a multi-course, carefully crafted extravaganza, and I really hope to have the opportunity to visit The Latymer before too long.

India Pale Ale - The Belgian Connection?

Words & Photography by Greg Klerkx and Luiz Hara

Beer is seemingly everywhere on London’s fine dining scene these days. It’s no longer odd for a Michelin-starred sommelier to recommend a fruit-infused brew instead of, say, a Muscat to finish, or even to hear the more heretical suggestion of a witbier to start. Craft brewpubs abound, growlers are the new must-have foodie toy, and everyone and their beer-making mother is trying to hop (no pun intended) onto the beery bandwagon.

Uber-hip Belgian brand Vedett has been a fixture on the discerning beer drinker’s scene for longer than most, though many Londoners may only have encountered Vedett’s squat, cheerily-coloured bottles with their moules et frites at the local Belgo. Until now, Vedett, a self-described ‘cult’ brand in the larger Duvel group, has made only two beers and made them very nicely indeed: a hop-tastic, aromatic and eminently drinkable Extra Blond and a lightly fizzy, almost candied Extra White. So far, so Belgian.

This month, the laid-back label is taking a much bigger leap into the fray with the launch of Vedett Extra Ordinary IPA. IPA beers aren’t unknown in Belgium, though they are a fairly recent development and tend to be bolder, darker and punchier in flavour and alcohol content – Vedett’s is a hefty 5.5% – than English IPAs. They most closely resemble American IPAs and often use American hop varieties, as does Vedett’s.

Vedett offered a chance to sample its new IPA and other beers at Cinnamon Kitchen, the suit-and-tie branch of Vivek Singh’s very successful Indian restaurant empire. The intent was to show off great beer and great food, but also to demonstrate the versatility of beer as a stand-alone food beverage – suitable not just as a novelty against one course, but fully capable of carrying a sophisticated four-course menu.

The Vedett Extra Ordinary IPA featured twice during our meal, initially with a some rather delicious canapés that showed Cinnamon Kitchen to very good advantage. Particularly delicious was baked tilapia with Bengali mustard and sweet pepper coulis, which managed the difficult feat of packing a huge flavour punch whilst not steamrolling the delicate tilapia. Potato and green pea cakes with tomato chutney were also lovely: robust and zingy, moist and crispy in the right proportion.

As for the IPA, it was absolutely delicious: not as overwhelmingly hoppy as some IPAs, yet still firm and treacly, dark gold in colour and eminently drinkable. Though the Vedett representatives on hand were somewhat modest about their entry into the crowded IPA field, they should feel very confident. This one deserves to be a hit.

The evening’s other beer-food pairings also worked a treat. Vedett’s workhorse Extra White provided a gently fruity, slightly lemony complement to Tandoori salmon with dill & mustard, served with a wasabi-infused green pea relish.

The smoother, somewhat more elegant Vedett Extra Blond held up nicely against a Chargrilled chicken with yoghurt & coriander, and also went well with a rich, kicky black lentil daal served with naan bread between courses.

Cinnamon Kitchen’s shining moment of the evening came with its main course, an absolutely gorgeous Chargrilled lamb fillet with mint & onion sauce that was succulent and perfectly spiced, the lamb falling apart on the fork (and very quickly disappearing from the plate.) If the intention of the lamb course was again to show the Extra Ordinary IPA to good effect, it worked: the IPA was just as compelling here as it was at the beginning of the evening.

We finished with Shrikhand cheesecake, ginger & fennel seed crumble and glasses of iced Liefmans Fruitesse, a refreshing cherry-and-berry-infused beer that is a favourite at The LondonFoodie Supper Club. By that point in the evening, the point had been proved: the beer revolution in fine dining is here to stay, and justly so.