Starting off as a street food concept, hitting up the best markets and festivals in their cool AF VW camper van, Bob’s Lobster was always a cut above most vendors.
But they’ve recently upped the ante and now have permanent digs under the listed railway arches of London Bridge, complete with a suntrap terrace. Fear not, they’ve not got rid of their beloved camper van, it’s been repurposed as an oyster shucking bar and sits to one side of the restaurant. Running along the back is an impressive bar where they’ll rustle you up all the classics (try the Bob’s Martini – a dirty martini with a sea salt spray) and seating is a mixture of cosy red leather booths and barstools scattered over a monochrome diner-esque floor.
As you’d expect, the menu is heavily focused on seafood, but there’s more to it than their beloved crustacean. We began with a round of oysters (happy hour is 4-6pm, Monday – Friday!) and a couple of their insanely delicious tuna tacos dotted with wasabi guacamole and chipotle mayo. Also from the ‘raw & cured’ section was their shrimp cocktail. However, instead of an 80’s style iceberg lettuce salad, we were presented with seven juicy prawns on a bed of ice with a fiery horseradish bloody mary dipping sauce.
If you haven’t tried it before, Bob Lobster’s famous lobster and crayfish brioche roll is a must-order, crammed with sweet claw, tail and knuckle meat doused in mayo and celery salt. But as we’ve lost count of the times we’ve enjoyed this bad boy, we went for the ultra-sophisticated lobster tail. They’ve done all the hard work for you (is it just us that finds lobster a chore to eat at times?) so the meat has been pulled out, ready for you to devour, served in vanilla white wine butter sauce. It’s not huge but more a case of quality over quantity. Other highlights for us included the shrimp & grits – an Americana fave, we tucked into bourbon-glazed prawns, served on jalapeno and bacon polenta that had a cheesy kick.
In case you have any room for dessert, you can’t go wrong with the gloriously rich chocolate brownie and vanilla ice cream.
Service is still super friendly and not too formal despite this being a decidedly more grown-up affair, and there’s a good buzzy atmosphere which lasted all night. Check out the banging wine list too – available by the glass, carafe or the bottle.
