For those lobster lovers out there the annual Lobsterfest event held at popular Belgian restaurant chain, Belgo, is the one for you. Held across all five restaurants across London, which are renowned for their mussels, frites and biere, Lobsterfest is in eleventh year and showcases the best of the shellfish.
My dinner guest, Theo and I attended the summer event held in Soho, at the restaurant in Old Compton Street. The atmosphere was buzzing and loud and the diners appeared to be having fun. We were shown to our table by Ordette, who was friendly and attentive and discussed both menus with us (normal and Lobsterfest). Both Theo and I are huge lobster fans, so it was a no brainer!
We asked the waitress if we could try all 4 choices on the menu between us, so we could sample the whole menu and she was very accommodating. We also asked to sample the specially mixed cocktails for the event, which were very creative, unique and had been designed by expert mixologists.
We started with bread and olives and had a lovely selection of white and granary bread served with a parsley, olive oil and garlic dip and accompanied by plump, juicy olives. Our lovely waitress, Tinika, brought out our first cocktail of the night, which was Belgian Garden and was a combination of gin, watermelon schnapps and grapefruit. I am an avid gin drinker and the combination of gin and watermelon went beautifully together and was a match made in heaven! It was very fresh and the taste of watermelon really came through.
The first dish was lobster linguine and this was delicious. Delightful creamy sauce with succulent lobster, asparagus and tomatoes, this turned out to be our favourite dish. Next came the second dish, Lobster Waterzooi, a delicious soup that was spicy, deep and rich in flavour and was perfect to dip our bread in. It contained plenty of delicious mussels and potatoes and is Belgium’s national dish. This was accompanied by our second cocktail of the night, Slagarita! Belgo Margarita with a whole bottle of slag pils. This was a very unusual drinking experience and we found that we couldn’t drink it all, as it was just too much liquid! It tasted lovely however and reminded me of shandy.
The next dish was Surf and Turf Burger and this comprised of a juicy beef burger topped with lobster and accompanied by fries and a tasty coleslaw presented in an empty lobster shell. All in all a very enjoyable dish. To finish the pop up menu, we then had ½ lobster with a rich béarnaise sauce, served on a bed of spinach. The lobster was cooked perfectly and was complemented well by the sauce. I was completely full by this point but Theo decided to have a dessert and ordered a crepe with salted caramel ice cream and white chocolate. Unfortunately, the crepe was very hard and Theo was unable to eat it. Our waitress offered to replace it and was very apologetic but we decided we had eaten enough food for one evening! We were then brought our last cocktail of the evening, a Jimi Hendrik. This was passion fruit schnapps, Straffe Hendrik and Vodka. We had a good go at this one but it was very gassy and we had eaten far too much! Our favourite cocktails of the night were the Belgian Garden and the Mojito, and were truly delightful.
The staff were very friendly and there was a good atmosphere in the venue, we ended up chatting to the people at the table next to us and it had a pub feel about it. Belgo are renowned for their seafood and bieres and they didn’t disappoint with Lobsterfest, I would highly recommend this event to Londoners and visitors to the capital alike.
Address: 29-31 Old Compton Street, Soho, London W1D 5JR
