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Restaurant review: Bonnie Gull Seafood Shack, Soho
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Try the new branch of Bonnie Gull Seafood Shack in Soho… January is one of those funny months in the culinary world.
Step up the new Bonnie Gull Seafood Shack on Bateman Street, deep in the heart of Soho.
The menu offers modern seafood at its very finest with an ever changing menu of interesting (and seasonal) sharing plates where even those who think they’re not fans of seafood will be diving for the last scallop or oyster.
The veggie side dishes are pretty knockout too with brownie points going to the tempura kale with anchovy mustard and a moreish plate of wood roasted celeriac with raisins and pine nuts.
Careful January eaters will love Bonnie Gull’s because it produces dish after dish of flavoursome food without the calories but if, like us, you’d been good only to be floored by the amazing treacle tart and clotted cream, don’t despair – you can always blame it on the charming cooks behind the counter.
Bonnie Gull Seafood Shack | A Sleek Seafood Bar In Soho
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Bonnie Gull Seafood Shack | Soho Restaurant This place shucks.
A new, teensy weensy addition to the five year-old Bonnie Gull flagship in Fitzrovia, the Soho number combines the sleekness of an express seafood counter with the rustic charm of a Cornish cove.
And with all this seafood, you’ll be glad to know that there’s more than a drop to drink – mostly in the form of wine from small-scale producers, chosen by sommelier Bastien Ferreri, and Bonnie Maries (served with a fresh oyster).
Meaning that every version you have afterwards will be just yet another bloody mary… NOTE: Bonnie Gull Soho is now open Mon-Sat noon till midnight, and Sunday 12pm-10pm, with last orders an hour before.
Bonnie Gull | 22 Bateman Street, W1D 3AN Image credit: Helen Cathcart for Bonnie Gull Soho Looking for a seafood spot for a big special occasion?
Bonnie Gull Seafood Shack | Soho, Fitzrovia, Covent Garden ...
"Bonnie Gull tries a bit strenuously to charm, in that Broadway Market manner, but if you keep it simple you could have a great time here for a moderate price, I suspect.
We had a moderate time and paid £146.81."
Bonnie Gull Seafood Shack - review | London Evening Standard
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Bonnie Gull’s previous avatars have been a pop-up seafood “shack” in Broadway Market, a game joint in Chapel Market (The Bonnie Wild), and, in July, Bonnie-on-Sky on a rooftop in London Bridge.
Last week the raw bar was offering cockles, langoustines and razor clams, as well as three kinds of oysters: Jersey rocks at £2 each, Portlands at £2.90 and Loch Ryan natives at £3.
“Isle of Man Queenies with Yorkshire chorizo, lemon purée and baby-leaf salad” (£7.50) was good value too, the juicy little scallops enlivened by sausagey dice which contributed also a little peppery sauce, carefully dotted about with little lemony blobs (thickened how?)
The thing to go for in any good fish restaurant is simplicity — the whole Devon crab with mayo and baguette (£17), say, or the haddock and chips with mushy peas (£13.50), or the whole plaice with beurre noisette (£12).
Bonnie Gull tries a bit strenuously to charm, in that Broadway Market manner, but if you keep it simple you could have a great time here for a moderate price, I suspect.
Grace Dent reviews Bonnie Gull | London Evening Standard
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ES Food Newsletter I was dispatched to Fitzrovia this week to the Bonnie Gull seafood shack.
It’s a small, cosy, clean seaside shack, all rustic whitewashing, elegantly draped ropes, reclaimed packing crates and British beach tat.
There’s an ambitious raw bar filled with Wild Loch Ryan Natives, Portland Pearls, Mersea Rocks, Venus and razor clams, winkles, whelks, cockles and langoustines, and mains include whole Devon cock crab, West Coast Scottish lobster, lemon sole with white grapes and crispy shallots, and an exemplary beer-battered North Sea haddock with mushy peas and shack ketchup.
Seriously, that’s not such a given these days — I visited somewhere in Hackney this week where I was tempted to make a small fire of hipster installation flyers just to keep my blood moving — plus Bonnie Gull does this brilliant new thing where one can call beforehand and reserve a table.
Not the real coast, but some imaginary paradise British seaside; not, for example, Blackpool, of which the Dent family’s seaside getaway last year — six days living on trans fats in sideways drizzle — still leads me to scream, ‘Nooo, make the smell of doughnut fat stop!
Bonnie Gull | Restaurants in Fitzrovia, London
food menu
The premises do a good job of evoking a seaside shack, with simple tables and chairs, a lot of blue and white (notably the jaunty awning), and ropework on the wall.
It changes daily, but super-fresh crab, simply served on a wooden platter, with the brown meat mixed with mayo in the shell and the white meat ready to be cracked out, is often featured and always worth ordering.
More complex dishes are beautifully presented, and equally good.
There are a couple of meat and vegetarian dishes, but you’d be mad to miss out on the carefully sourced British fish and seafood.
There’s a short wine list, biased towards white, but with a few reds, included a couple of chilled options.