Crab Tavern

A crabby affair

Crab Tavern

As part of a heavy investment in redevelopment in The City, Broadgate Circle has now become a modern restaurant hub with all kind of restaurants launching within the circle, from high end dining such as Yauatcha to value chains such as Franco Manca and Shoryu. Crab Tavern is the latest opening in the circle, as you would expect from the name, it is an all day seafood restaurant highly focusing on crab. The concept is similar to New York surf and turf style with two bars, a main dining room and outdoor seating. I am a big crab fan and it is not easy to find a restaurant in London that does crab well so I was delighted to visit Crab Tavern at its soft launch opening.

Oysters

Crab Tavern platter

Soft shell crab burger

The signature house starter, Crab Tavern platter is a mixture of all things crabby, the crab caesar sub's bread was dry and tough which was a major disappointment, as the crab filling within was fresh and well balanced with its caesar dressing. Crab tartar on toast was a step up in gear, it had a lovely natural sweetness from the crab meat. The champion of the platter was the soft shell crab, finely fried with the perfect level of seasoning. Singapore crab with tomato and chilli sauce was one of those dishes you most likely won't enjoy if you've tried the real deal in South East Asia, the chilli was not intense enough and lacked the punchy spicy elements, it was almost like a plate of crab sitting in a tomato dressing with dashes of chilli oil tossing on top, however the brown crab meat from the crab was rich and creamy which was very pleasant.

Singapore crab

Pot roast chicken, smoked garlic mash

salted caramel sundae

Service was fine as you would expect from an American themed restaurant, what I wasn't so sure was the price point, it was no real value for money for some of the dishes as almost £50 for a plate of chopped up crab leg was a major question mark for me, I know the location is right in the heart of The City district but competition is high within this space. Overall I think Crab Tavern has a brilliant concept, however I felt the execution was not quite there but that was as expected from the early days of any restaurant, London lack real quality mid market restaurants that focus on crab so Crab Tavern definitely has a great unique selling point that has the potential to take off.

Food 2.5/5

What I paid: 
£26 per head 

Average cost without drinks and services:
£35 pp

Unit, 7 Broadgate Cir, London EC2M 2QS

http://crabtavern.co.uk/