The first time I went to the London Shell Co., I hated it. This was nothing to do with the food, and everything to do with my aversion to anything boaty, and being trapped on one for the best part of 2 1/2 hours as it punted around the dark, damp Regent's canal in the middle of winter was not - to say the least - my idea of fun.
So what I wanted, then, was the London Shell Co. on dry land, and specifically the lovely, leafy neighbourhood of Highgate. It's not a part of town I visit very often - and my nightmare journey home on Friday after dinner served a handy reminder as to why - but its a fantastic place to visit occasionally. Perhaps combine it with a walk across the Heath, or a drink and snack in the brilliant Bull & Last.
The London Shell Company is by day a fishmonger and cafe, and by evening a smart seafood bistro. It's already wildly popular, based on the people streaming through the door last week, and rightly so - this fishmonger/restaurant thing is quite common abroad, especially in parts of Spain, but aside from the ill-fated Fish Club which briefly popped up on Northcote Road a few years back, I'm surprised you don't see more of them.
This being an invite, we were offered a bit of everything to sample so our dinner is not perhaps representative of what you would normally be able to order. Still I can tell you the smoked salmon was excellent, presented with mini cournichon and some nice bubbly house crispbread.
With the bread - all made in house, a nice cakey focaccia and a more straightforward but still enjoyable wholewheat - came crab butter, and if you're the kind of person you can resist crab butter when you see it on a menu then you're a stronger person than me. Anchovies were Ortiz, and yes I know all the arguments about paying someone to open a can of anchovies for me but surely the same applies to wine? You're in a restaurant, just enjoy it.
Oysters were plump and fresh, a couple presented au naturel which I smothered in Tabasco, and a couple dressed with pickled cucumber (I think) and a slice of red chilli. And I will, within reason, eat oysters given to me any way at all (including deep-fried in a Po'Boy sandwich) and so the fact I polished these off in seconds is probably not some great endorsement, but there it is anyway.
Next scallops in a garlic butter sauce, which were obviously very enjoyable too. If I'm going to be brutally critical I would have perhaps liked a bit more colour and crust on the scallops themselves - or even the addition of roe - but it's still very, very difficult to not enjoy scallops in a garlic butter sauce.
Finally, for main, a whole roast plaice. Sorry about my useless photo - for some reason I decided that the most interesting thing about this fish was its neck - but rest assured this was a very good example of its kind, with a nicely timed flesh and robustly seasoned skin. We had great fun picking the meat from the head and collar, and left nothing but a cartoonish assembly of head, spine and tail. Also I know we weren't paying but I think £22 is quite good value for a fish of this size, isn't it?
I didn't order, or try, the bitter leaf salad - there's no place for bitter leaves on my dinner table, thank you very much - but I was told it was very good so let's leave it at that. With a couple of glasses of wine (one a very nice English sparkling Bacchus, not Chapel Down but another winemaker) the bill would have come to something like £50pp, right on the money for a neighbourhood restaurant.
Because although perhaps LSC isn't so stratospherically impressive as to attract people from far and wide, I very much get the impression that's not the intent. It's a little seafood bistro attached to a local fishmongers, serving up whatever's good that day for a reasonable amount of money, and it's all the better for being on the high, dry land of Highgate and having proper toilets. It is already doing - and I'm sure will continue to do - very well indeed.
8/10
I was invited to the London Shell Co. and didn't see a bill.
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