Gilroy’s Loft Restaurant, Old Brewer Yard Review

Gilroy’s Loft is a newly opened Seafood Restaurant in Covent Garden situated at the rooftop of the Guinness Open Gate Brewery London which was officially opened by none other than King Charles in early December. The location has been thoughtfully transformed with a considerable investment of £73 million to create a hub containing a microbrewery, visitor experiences, restaurants, shops, and events spaces while successfully keeping the feel of its industrial past.

Image courtesy of Gilroy’s Loft Restaurant

Pip Lacey is the Executive Chef leading the culinary direction of the restaurants which include Porter’s Table, a grill room with a meaty slant to a menu serving hearty British dishes and Gilroy’s Loft, with a menu focused on seafood while carefully incorporating Guinness and beer as an ingredient in several dishes. 

If Pip’s name sounds familiar it will be due to the daringjourney she has been through to get here. She graced our screens when she appeared on the Great British menu in 2015 winning the competition and was then eventually selected by Jeremy Clarkson to run the kitchens at his Diddly Squat Farm restaurant. Prior to these events she built up a remarkable career after leaving graphic design to work in kitchens at the age of 27, regarded to be quite late in “chef years”.  

Leaving a career as a graphic designer she pivoted to working in the kitchens of well respected restaurants with her first job under Angela Hartnett at the York and Albany,  as well as a stint at the triple Michelin starred Royal Hospital Road (Gordon Ramsey’s flagship three starred Michelin restaurant)and eventually returning to her mentor to become Head Chef at Murano (Angela Hartnett’s Italian fine -dining restaurant in Mayfair) and eventually opening Hicce in partnership with Gordy Mcintyre.

Image courtesy of Gilroy’s Loft Restaurant

Last week we had the occasion to dine at Gilroy’s Loft. We wandered from Covent Garden station through mild drizzle along Shelton Street towards Old Brewers Yard passing the large open black gates leading to a cobble stoned courtyard filled with tables and chairs under the protection of a glass roof resting atop industrial beams. Here a food truck serves delicious pies baked on site by London Pie King Calum Franklin.

Upon entering the reception of the building housing the restaurants, we were cheerily greeted by name (always a nice touch) and accompanied up the lift and then through The Porter’s Table restaurant occupying two floors to get to the next lift leading to the roof top. It feels oddly complicated, but someone is there to guide until the lift opens into a spacious room with a central bar for drinks or counter snacking. Along the bar’s back wall is a small kitchen pass and a seafood display with rows of oysters, prawns and lobsters reflecting the menus seafood focus.

We were sat along the right-hand side of the room on comfortable banquette seating. On the other side of the bar are occasional tables and a door leading to a rooftop terrace.There is technically a sliver of a view across town, but not thepanoramic views you’d expect. 

Image courtesy of Gilroy’s Loft Restaurant

A key part of the experience here is the pairing of seafood with Guinness, alongside a short cocktail list and a well-chosen selection of international and English wines. If you like a good negroni their Sour Plum Negroni is an excellent slightly gentler version. For those in the market for a non-alcoholic tipple and have yet to discover Guinness 00 you will be very pleasantly surprised to find it’s as good as the original.

Being a bit of a purist when having oysters I was delightfully surprised by their dressed oysters. The utterly crave-worthy Raw Achill was a titillating oyster topped with skilfully brunoised crab apple, baked leek and a rich seaweed cream. The “Dressed Plants” offers an alternative to the oysters for vegetarians with spoonfuls of tasty combinations like buttered turnips with fermented chilli, mustard seeds apple crisp, and dill or braised shiitake mushrooms with pickled kale, dulse seaweed and orange oil giving a citrus lift.

There are seafood platters ranging from £40 to £115 for the works, which includes a half lobster. “The Plates” portion of the menus offers dishes of varying size from the modestly sized Guiness rarebit to main course sizes the roast halibut steak. This was certainly no ordinary rarebit, the plating made it almost to pretty to eat, topped with chicory pink grapefruit, carrot, pickled walnut and coriander. My husband thoroughly enjoyed the roast halibut on a beer velouté with the perfect amount of acidity and cluster of Brussel sprouts. I enjoyed the Linguini and Palourde clams, with beer a generous amount of samphire, chilli, sea herbs. The addition of samphire was inspiring, and I can see myself adding this to all my seafood pasta dishes in the future.

Image courtesy of Gilroy’s Loft Restaurant

If you can make it through to dessert don’t miss the dangerously good Chocolate olive oil sponge with Amarena cherry and pistachio ice cream which beautifully combines a knockout combination of textures and flavours.

All in all a great spot for any occasion from a flight of oysters with a Guinness at the bar to an impressive business lunch and when someone finds the dimmer switch and gets some candles on the tables it will make for a great date night too.

Location: 28-32 Shelton Street, London   Opening Hours: Mon-Thur 11am – 11.30pm, Fri & Sat 11am -Midnight,  Sun  Midday – 10.30pm. Website:  opengate.guiness.com Instagram: @gilroysloft

  Review by Natascha Milsom