If the idea of a floating restaurant conjures up images of cheesy tourist tours, gimmicky menus and bad consequences for the stomach, a new take on riverside dining could change your mind.
Leading the charge is London Shell Co, which has traded in its popular supper club to open up a permanent location aboard the Prince Regent canal boat. Moored alongside Sheldon Square in London's Paddington, it's open Wednesday to Friday for either a static lunch or a three-hour cruising dinner, departing at 7:30pm each evening.
The concise but considered menu is, unsurprisingly, dominated by its signature seafood: tempting Morecambe Bay oysters and zesty home-cured Scottish salmon with grapefruit, lime and orange sit alongside smoked cod's roe served with burnt leeks on toast and bacon, cockles and laverbread. Game makes an appearance depending on the time of year and there's a rotating selection of wines.
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The newcomer follows in a line of establishments that have taken to the UK's waterways. The port city of Bristol makes a natural home for Glassboat, situated on Welshback looking out on to the historic harbour. The restaurant is in a traditional barge that had been languishing in the River Severn before being hauled out and lovingly restored in the 1980s.
Not so much a boat as a destination in itself, Farmopolis is a floating-garden jetty off the Greenwich Peninsula. It acts as a home for the tens of thousands of plants no longer needed at the end of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, but the newly opened cafe could prove as much of an attraction. Run by Kofler & Kompanie, the caterers behind Magazine restaurant at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, it focuses on sustainably sourced ingredients enjoyed against the backdrop of panoramic views of the River Thames.
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