Restaurants

Josef Sheekey was a market stall holder given permission by one Lord Salisbury to serve fish and seafood in this 1896 property development, on the proviso that he supply meals to Salisbury’s after-theatre dinner parties. Over a century later, the restaurant retains its late-Victorian, theatrical charm, but unlike many of London’s period pieces Sheekey’s buzzes with fashionable folk and famous faces. Your party of four may be crammed on to a table that other restaurants would allocate to two, but best consider this part of the fun. The menu stretches from comforting favourites (fish pie, dense salmon fish cakes) to accomplished Modern British and European cooking (River Fowey sea trout with wild fennel and sea purslane; chargrilled cuttlefish with braised chickpeas and padrón peppers). Choose carefully and you can eat fairly economically, but mains reach up over £20 and lobster and dover sole further still. Simple salt-baked gilthead bream, shown to the table in its crust before filleting, was stunning; so too the golden, hear-the-crunch battered haddock. Good desserts (honeycomb ice-cream with dark chocolate sauce, black fig tart, elderflower jelly) are a pleasing bi-catch. We’ve had complaints about rude service here, but staff were pleasant enough on this occasion.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2009