Please note, since this review was published, Bonnie Gull has been renamed Bonnie Gull Seafood Shack. Time Out Food editors, NOVEMBER 2019.
After starting as a pop-up in Hackney in 2011, Bonnie Gull landed in Fitzrovia in 2012. 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. Staff are engaged and welcoming, and the menu is something special.
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. Another menu staple is fish and chips, featuring haddock, chips cooked in beef dripping, mushy peas and the house ketchup. More complex dishes are beautifully presented, and equally good. Cornish hake with courgette purée, beer-battered courgette flower and courgette ribbons was an assured plateful, full of contrasting tastes, textures and colours – we savoured every mouthful.
Puddings are a treat too: lemon curd tart with raspberry sorbet was zingy and indulgent, with delicate pastry. 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. Prices are very fair for central London.
There’s a short wine list, biased towards white, but with a few reds, included a couple of chilled options. In short – we like the cut of their jib.