The Lockhart

US high end cuisine?

The Lockhart, photo from management

There aren't many high end American restaurants in London, in fact, I struggled to name one apart from The Lockhart. For the last 6 months, The Lockhart had gathered some very positive reviews from the press and highly rated from good number of bloggers, and that was one of the main reasons why I decided to give the place a try. The decor is spacey with an open kitchen and the menu is in your standard a la carte format, short with a good number of smoked dishes as expected from a Southern US themed restaurant.

pork rind and spicy turbot roe

corn bread

We kicked off with some decent snacks, the crispy pork rind was not oily at all and even more impressive was the turbot roe, rich and spicy but not overwhelming. The chicken oysters was sweet and tender and the mustard BBQ sauce packed a real punch with a tiny hint of sourness to it. The cod "Pontchartrain" was finely cooked, very soft and smooth, delightfully sweet and well seasoned, all rested in a lovely fish sauce with sprouting broccoli and glassy monk's beard, but there was also a real disaster and which was the shortribs, the meat itself was really tender and packed with lovely meaty richness so I wondered why it was glazed in such a strong and intense sweet and sour BBQ reduction, it completely overpowered and killed off the flavour of the shortribs.

cod "Pontchartrain"

smoked short ribs, coleslaw and BBQ reduction

chocolate chess pie

To sum it up, the Lockhart is capable of moments of brilliant but also came up with some very questionable dishes, apart from the shortribs, I noticed the fried chicken didn't go down well with all the tables around us left half eaten plates and looking disappointed. Price wise was also very expensive for this type of cooking, with each main costing around the £20 mark, there are better restaurants elsewhere charging cheaper prices and Smokehouse is a prime example. I was lucky to book with Toptable so I had 25% off, even with that, I wasn't sure if it was value for money.


Food 2.5/5

Head chef: 
Brad McDonald

What I paid: 
£29 pp

Average cost without drinks and services:
£35 pp


22-24 Seymour Place, London W1H 7NL

http://lockhartlondon.com/