London's Dining Couple Shotgun BBQ review

THIS RESTAURANT HAS SADLY BEEN CLOSED

I first heard about Shotgun BBQ a while ago while I was doing a real deep restaurant search to create a list for us to go to. But we never managed to get to it and recently Amen heard of the restaurant somewhere and now he will claim he found this little gem * rolls eyes *. Anyways, Shotgun BBQ is an American barbecue restaurant in London’s West End – Carnaby Street. We love a good American-style barbecue restaurant and London has a few of these to offer, some are really good, others not so much. We would place Shotgun BBQ on the good side and definitely would recommend it.

The restaurant itself has to be the most narrow restaurant we have ever been to, everything just seemed so tight and had little room to move around especially when the waitress and waiters are trying to move around with plates of food. The tables for two are super small especially for us as we do order quite a fair bit; all I was thinking was this is going to be struggle, hopefully everything doesn’t come at once. But this is intentional of the restaurant to fit the New-Orleans BBQ Shack theme. However, I didn’t get the décor of the restaurant as it was a bit odd – it didn’t feel like an American restaurant more of an old Victorian, gentleman’s bar/pub that’s been converted to a restaurant.

Review of the food

Starters

The menu is small but has a little of everything (the menu does change so don’t count on what we’ve had). I had the Mac and Cheese (with Guajillo & cheddar sauce), I actually don’t like mac and cheese but after having this I think I’m in love with it now. I could’ve easily only had the mac and cheese and been satisfied. For a “small plates” dish it was a decent size, I was totally taking my time to eat it. Amen’s starter was their special of day, which was the Quail; he’s never tried quail before (SHOCK! He’s literally tried everything lol). He thought it tasted nice but odd (that could just be because he’s never had quail before).

Mains

For my mains I had fried chicken on a bed of cabbage and pickles. It came with two pieces – a leg and breast. I also had coleslaw. I was still eating my mac and cheese with the chicken so I didn’t really eat much of the coleslaw, but it wasn’t bad. The fried chicken was really good and I added the Kansas City sauce, which has a barbecue sauce taste but better (this was one of the four sauces the waiter brought to the table – Kansas city hot, Carolina, Kansas City and Mustard).

Amen’s main was the USDA Beef brisket – you have a choice of wet, lean or burnt ends; for Amen it was the wet, which he had with the Kansas City Hot and also creamed corn as a side. Amen thought the beef was simple, cooked well with little seasoning, which I’m guessing that’s what the four sauces are for. For drinks we had our usual Virgin Mojito. The only thing I was not keen on was that the plates were huge for with a lot of empty spaces on the plate itself and then with the small tables it just made it hard to eat.

Dessert

We couldn’t have dessert after all that, so we just got the bill, which was surprisingly value for money.

Verdict

Shotgun BBQ is up there with the likes of Hotbox when it comes to good American Barbecue food, we will definitely be returning. Perfect for a chilled date and casual dining – we highly recommend to reserve a table as the restaurant is limited for space.

Dress Code: Casual
Cuisine: American Barbecue
Shiima and Amen’s Star Dish: Mac and Cheese
Price: £35 each (without alcohol or dessert)
Rating: 4.5 out of 5