Wright Brothers is of course one of London’s famous oyster houses, or is rather, two of London’s famous oyster houses for there is one at Borough market and one, this one, in Soho. We have been to the one in Borough several times, it’s a compact little venue that even with a dozen people in feels busy, but when it is actually full, you have to feel comfortable about relinquishing what little personal space even London affords you; not one for the misanthropic.
The Soho venue is entirely different. Spanning a split floor at the ground level and a large downstairs dining room as well as an outside terrace area, it can accommodate many people in a fair degree of comfort. It’s actually quite a charming venue in its own way with the restaurant making the most of the three tier space featuring seated food bars, a nice blend of wood, ceramic and metal, and downstairs, stylised lighting.
The menu at Wright Brothers is a reasonably simple affair: broadly oysters, crustaceans and other 'usual suspects' fishy dishes to start, and fish pie and whole fish mains. There’s some steak on the menu too but you come to Wright Bros for the seafood. It’s oysters to start for us, it really is the thing to do here and they can rarely be faulted. There’s always a choice too and today the staff recommended Jersey oysters and Lindisfarne. They’re excellent.
We choose as a main one of the other starters, a whole Spider Crab, as well as a half lobster with Jersey Royals. The spider crab’s arrival is a visual treat though extracting the meat means that it will take twice as long as any other dish to eat so expect to be going long after your companions have finished. You’ll also probably be scraping the brown meat onto bread so by the end, this can be quite filling if you’ve ordered it for a starter. It is good however and a little unusual to see on menus.
Hard now of course not to compare any lobster dish to that served at Burger & Lobster, not least on price. Here, the half lobster is £23. It does come nicely cooked, the hard work done for you with the claw meat extracted and laid in the shell with a few herbs and lots of butter. The butter spills over onto the plate, possibly the Jersey Royal have their own generous butter serving also but the effect is that the greens served with the dish are also now butter soaked. Personally, I don’t mind, melted butter is always good, but others might take issue with this.
The Soho venue is entirely different. Spanning a split floor at the ground level and a large downstairs dining room as well as an outside terrace area, it can accommodate many people in a fair degree of comfort. It’s actually quite a charming venue in its own way with the restaurant making the most of the three tier space featuring seated food bars, a nice blend of wood, ceramic and metal, and downstairs, stylised lighting.
The menu at Wright Brothers is a reasonably simple affair: broadly oysters, crustaceans and other 'usual suspects' fishy dishes to start, and fish pie and whole fish mains. There’s some steak on the menu too but you come to Wright Bros for the seafood. It’s oysters to start for us, it really is the thing to do here and they can rarely be faulted. There’s always a choice too and today the staff recommended Jersey oysters and Lindisfarne. They’re excellent.
We choose as a main one of the other starters, a whole Spider Crab, as well as a half lobster with Jersey Royals. The spider crab’s arrival is a visual treat though extracting the meat means that it will take twice as long as any other dish to eat so expect to be going long after your companions have finished. You’ll also probably be scraping the brown meat onto bread so by the end, this can be quite filling if you’ve ordered it for a starter. It is good however and a little unusual to see on menus.
Hard now of course not to compare any lobster dish to that served at Burger & Lobster, not least on price. Here, the half lobster is £23. It does come nicely cooked, the hard work done for you with the claw meat extracted and laid in the shell with a few herbs and lots of butter. The butter spills over onto the plate, possibly the Jersey Royal have their own generous butter serving also but the effect is that the greens served with the dish are also now butter soaked. Personally, I don’t mind, melted butter is always good, but others might take issue with this.
downstairs dining room
oysters
spider crab
Lobster & Jersey Royals
Our last meal at the Borough branch had a small let down on food and a big let down on service. Today, both were fine. Service was in fact very friendly at times. The food was good enough. To be fair, this is never meant to be stretch food or fine dining, more like spuds and fish. As such, on a day when you decide that seafood’s the thing, some oysters followed by the fish here is good enough always to make Wright Brothers a viable option.
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Related links
Wright Bros website
Wright Bros (Borough) CC post
Return to homepage
Related links
Wright Bros website
Wright Bros (Borough) CC post
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