The Lobster Pot

Once we had rang the bell and entered the restaurant, the sound of sea gulls gave the ship deck based restaurant an authentic feel. The port holes with fish swimming by, the fish nets and French signage gave a true French feel to place.

After reading the menu and quickly deciding we wanted everything! we opted for the 8 course taster menu. What came next was dish after dish of the most glorious fish based meal you could ever wish for.

The fish was cooked perfectly in every course (all 5 of them!) and married together with the most complementary sauce you could imagine. The tasting delights continued with the deserts as well, a pancake filled with creme brulee with 2 sauces complimenting it perfectly.

We were fortunate enough to meet Herve the owner/Chef, and after a brief chat, he took us to his bar next door for a tour which was equally as French, welcoming, and interesting as the man himself.

We are definately returning once we are in London again!

I have been to this quirky restaurant in Kennington on saturday, I thought I was going to have a quick nibble in my local…I was wrong. I was there for three hours, and not because the service was very long, but because I enjoyed it so much…It was Fabulous, one of the best meal I never had…and I am not that young !
The decor, the seagulls noise and the smell when your come in are a give away, so different, so exceptional !
We were four of us and we had the eight course surprise menu, home made fish soup, grouper with cajun spices, lobster with wild mushrooms, sorbet with what they call the “Russian sauce” (Vodka) then we had some seabass with scallops & prawns, then cheese, pancake (to die for !) and to finish some fruits. What a feast…I couldn't fault anything, except that the staff did not speak very good English, but to be honest, who cares ?
The Chef came to see us after the dinner, a little excentric, but a very interesting person…and belive you me, the guy can cook ! We ask for the bill, then the chef came back and ask us if we wanted a ninth course ???
What ? is he joking ? He then suggested us to have a brandy…next door, in his “other” restaurant the Toulouse Lautrec…with live music ! Absolutely stunning evening, very different and with quality !
I'll be back, definetly !… I might even bring the mother in law…see how confident I am.
Steve

Clearly, the chef-proprietor Herve and his charming wife do what they do because they love it., and that is what makes this place utterly special. My wife has a medical condition that requires an extremely specialised and difficult diet, a challenge to which Herve rose in masterly fashion last night with an extraordinarily inventive eight-course surprise menu that didn't miss a beat. The food that other people had off the regular menu also looked and smelled brilliant.

This friendly and welcoming place has been family run throughout its 20 year life, and it shows. It is a completely delightful place to spend an evening. The food is brilliant, the wine list simple and well chosen, and everything about it designed to make you happy and satisfied. That's how my wife and I felt, anyway.

As for prices, not the cheapest, but certainly far cheaper than the Mayfair equivalent, and we would happily have paid more for this.

Best seafood restaurant in London, by a mile. Probably the best restaurant, too.

The 8 course taster menu sounded great, unfortunately due to the unbelievably slow service we never got to try it! We waited for an hour (for oysters) before paying for our wine and walking out. We weren't even offered a drnk or even an apology. This restaurant is a classic example of style over substance and I wouldn't recommend it or go back.

The Lobster Pot's seafood was fresh and delicious, and very good value. At the end of a delightful meal, after lingering over luscious dessert wines and chatting with the friendly chef and his lovely wife, we were the last to leave. Nothing seemed too much trouble for them, and they gladly agreed to order a taxi for us we went out into a dark and stormy night. Not only is the chef/owner an excellent cook, but a very kind man too – “you'll never get a taxi in this rain” he said as he followed us out of the restaurant and offered us a lift home, which we gratefully accepted. How's that for service – definitely 11 out of 10!

The Lobster Pot in Kennington is lauded as a local institution and even before finally making my first visit last Saturday, I had heard and read a great deal about the quirky boat-themed interior, amusing sounds-of-the-sea soundtrack (long before Heston came up with the notion, it was being done here) and the supposedly very high quality of the seafood on offer served with pride by chef-patron Herve Regent. All were present and correct, it really is a charmingly eccentric set-up (ambience snobs would hate it; those of us with a sense of humour will embrace it as part of the experience) and attentive if occasionally remote staff add to the feeling of being in a place into a which a lot of thought has gone. What detracts from the experience, however, is the shockingly high prices for what is, to be kind, no more than a local, casual dining room. I know, having grown up by the sea and been brought up on seafood fresh from the morning's boats, that fish and shellfish of the quality served here doesn't come cheap, but come ON, Monsieur Regent: why no starters under £8.50 or mains – grilled chicken in this case – under £16.50? Sure these prices don't shock in the West End, or in local fine-diners such as Chez Bruce or Trinity, but this is Kennington, not Kensington, and for the bill to come to just over £100 for two courses for two and one bottle of wine is outrageous.

What did we eat? We started with the large seafood platter for two at £25.50, adding half a lobster for an additional £12.50, and it certainly was large, groaning with half a crab, five oysters, clams, winkles, whelks, clams, a huge langoustine and rather too many shrimps both pink and brown. The half a lobster was more like 3/8 of a lobster, lacking its claw which I thought cheeky, and was fine but unremarkable though in fairness I've always thought lobster over-rated. All of it was very good and undoubtedly super-fresh and certainly justified the price tag, but I felt that it was the only starter on the menu which did. Mains were OK, but my bouillabaisse at £18.50, served in a shallow fish-shaped dish rather than the deep vat I've come to expect, bore the scars of having stood under a heatlamp for rather too long, probably while we were finishing the seafood platter. My partner's grilled tiger prawns – a whacking £19.50! – similarly looked (and tasted) as if they had been grilled for about five minutes too long. A couple of the ten or so prawns tasted ‘not quite right’ (his words) but he couldn't put his finger on it enough to make a complaint worthwhile. The promised accompaniment of ‘a selection of vegetables’ constituted one new potato, one floret of broccoli (a broccolo?) and a quenelle of something orange; carrot and swede mash perhaps. This smacked of a chef attempting to finesse presentation in a restaurant where presentation is secondary – in a good way – to the experience, and therefore jarred. Bizarrely there are no side-orders on the menu, so one has to take this measly selection or lump it. It was all so uniformly average-to-good that we just didn't have the enthusiasm to bother with desserts.

The wine list is like Nicolas Sarkozy, short and entirely French, with all the usual suspects from Muscadet to Beaujolais via Rose d'Anjou. Our Muscadet, not too dear at £18.50, was nice enough but not one of the best, lacking the floral oomph that typifies better examples of this safe seafood pairing.

To give The Lobster Pot credit, the prices and no-more-than-quite-good standard of the food don't seem to have deterred anyone; the place was absolutely packed from 8.30 onwards and in addition to several other couples and a downcast family party, a large table of regulars (we deduced this from the effusive welcome they received and the entire staff's dedication to their table before ours) were enthusiastically and noisily shovelling down a mountain of seafood and bottle after bottle of Veuve Clicquot (at £72.50 a pop – what credit crunch?!). The place appears to do perfectly well from a devoted local clienetele without needing to go the extra mile to attract and retain casual visitors. I won't be going back; if I want superior food at prices to make my eyes water, I'll stick with my all-time favourite J.Sheekey where the final bill is at least mitigated by the five-star quality of the whole experience.