Succulent meats, grilled seafood platters, a smoky filled room and liquid desserts. These are just a few of the things you can expect when dining at The Coal Shed. Located in Tower Bridge, The Coal Shed celebrates coal roasted rare breed meat and South Coast seafood – as well as London’s new favourite Sunday sharing roasts. Occupying two floors, the restaurant is a modern open plan restaurant with a private dining room and small cocktail bar which is where we started.
After inhaling a deliciously spicy Bloody Mary, our first starter arrived. Asparagus with sauce gribiche and truffle. The smell when it arrived was enticing, the flavours precise and the asparagus was cooked well. A lovely start to our meal, both this dish and our drink at the bar.
If I had to pick my personal favourite dish, it would be this starter of BBQ Jacobs Ladder with a red cabbage slaw. The meat was quite literally falling off the bone, the BBQ sauce was sweet & sticky and a continuing them here – portion size was so huge that sharing is advised. Though we didn’t.
If you come to The Coal Shed for just one thing, make sure it’s for the steak. A succulent 300g rib eye steak, full of smoke and full of flavour. The steak here really is excellent and If being honest, it can at times outshine the rest of the food. A simple green side salad had an excellent dressing, the chimichurri sauce was addictive and the little bowl of German fried potatoes was nice enough, but the beef dripping chips my dining companion had were better. Price wise it’s not cheap, but neither is it going to leave your pockets short and you’ll enjoy every bite of that steak you came here for.
When it comes to pricing, you can really get quite a lot for your money here depending on what you order, particular note goes to the “surfboard”. Another huge offering, this time shellfish from the South Coast and Scotland – grilled over fire. All of the fish & shellfish is ethically caught, sustainable and delivered daily from the boats on the South Coast. We tucked into juicy mussels, succulent langoustines, charcoal grilled octopus tentacles, scallops and crab claws. Just to name a few. If that wasn’t already enough, the platter comes with a side of crispy golden coated quid with a whipped garlic dipping sauce. An overly generous dish, though I had no complaints.
Our first dessert out and my favourite. The Coal Shed’s take on the classic banoffee Pie, with dulce de leche espuma, caramel and banana. It’s rich, decadent, delicious and surprisingly light. Exactly what I want from any dessert.
I was expecting a little more from our other dessert of calvados baba if being quite honest. The baba needed more calvados as it was just a touch dry, the apple fritters would have been better as mini doughnuts (with a spiced apple filling), but the clotted cream pulled everything together nicely. Not a terrible dessert by any means, but they could do so much more with it.
We finished up on some liquid cocktails – because why not. A Highland Espresso for him which was made with blended Scotch, frangelico, espresso and chocolate bitters. Plus a Supreme Digestif for me. The latter a mix of vodka, Mr. Black’s, demerara, espresso and chocolate bitters. If you don’t quite have room for dessert, then make sure you save space for the liquid ones.
We had a lovely evening at The Coal Shed and for an area full of far too many mediocre tourist restaurant hotspots, it’s a step above the local competition and for meat lovers – the perfect escape. Start with the meat, order meat for main and finish with a few too many liquid cocktails. There is certainly room for improvements here, but even so – I think the concept of this place is a recipe for success and I don’t see it going anywhere, anytime soon.
This sounds delicious! Especially the seafood and the meat!