• Seafood• Paddington
London Shell Co was founded in 2016 by siblings Harry and Leah Lobek, alongside chef Stuart Kilpatrick, to source outstanding British seafood alongside a line-up of mainly French and English wine.
The intimate dining experience takes place on board the Prince Regent barge, which gently sails up and down the Regent’s Canal during dinner service, taking in sights like London Zoo and Regent’s Park. Inside, the dining room is compact and cute, with an area out the front to take in the views.
Food-wise, the kitchen on board serves elegantly cooked, fresher-than-fresh seafood sourced from the British Isles, available as a five-course set menu for both lunch and dinner. A wine pairing is available for £55, or there’s an extensive list of cocktails and wines by the bottle.
The London Shell Co is like meals on wheels, but with no wheels and a lot more oysters. This canal boat serves a set seafood cruising menu (if you want to be on the move) or a la carte (if you prefer to be stationary).
The simple, well-priced menu and short but exciting wine list make it plain sailing for this barge-based restaurant
For the evening jaunt you muster from 6pm when you can sit on the bow of the wide-beam barge and find your sea legs. Or something. At 7pm the boat rocks off — actually coolly as a cucumber
It’s rare that I get such a tingle of boyish excitement about a restaurant
The food is excellent, particularly a creamy clam chowder that arrived in a hollowed bread roll as if we were in the Hamptons in 1984
The swimmers on offer include dishes like Morecambe Bay oysters (with a LSC house dressing of moscatel vinegar, chilli, celery & cucumber); smoked cod’s roe with burnt leeks on toast; and bacon with cockles and laver bread – and they sometimes add a little British game to the menu to stay seasonal.