Plaquemine Lock

Plaquemine Lock serves Cajun and Creole food set on Regents Canal in Angel, Islington, London, in an authentic and relaxed pub atmosphere.

Pub with Cajun and Creole food in Islington, London | Plaquemine Lock

http://plaqlock.com

Plaquemine Lock review – Creole and Cajun pub food on the ...

It was a beautiful thing in the mouth – grainy and coarse, while also creamy, lightly sweet and nutty.

Given that the bod behind Plaquemine Lock is also involved with the top-notch Gelupo, this lapse in the ice cream arts is all the more puzzling.

Baron Greenback joined me for my third meal at Plaquemine Lock, in part so I could jaw my way through more of the menu without having to consume so much food myself in one sitting that my elasticated velour pants would snap and break.

Bittersweet, smooth and reasonably rich chocolate ice cream proved to be the Plaquemine Lock ice cream that I could embrace wholeheartedly.

What to order: Grits; Fried chicken; Grilled mullet; Pecan pie; Chocolate ice cream with pecans What to skip: Crawfish pie; Link and Rockefeller oysters Reservations: can only be made in person at the bar.

Plaquemine Lock, London: southern grub in a canalside pub

Plaquemine Lock: Review

And thirdly, the whole operation is the brainchild of a man, Jacob Kenedy, not known for his Louisiana roots and whose previous projects, Bocca di Lupo, Gelupo and the short-lived Vico, were solidly Italian.

Globe artichoke, the heart breadcrumbed and deep-fried, and the petals arranged around a pot of cumin-spiked dressing, was a perfect introduction to Plaquemine Lock’s attitude – comforting and rustic, but with a distinct presentational flair.

Before the main event we were treated to a small sample of the house pork scratchings, pieces of rendered belly fat (sorry, ‘Grattons’), beautifully soft in some parts and delicately crunchy in others, coated in an addictive Cajun spice mix.

Expertly timed, covered in a generous amount of house seasoning – Old Bay as a base perhaps, but with extra notes of cinnamon and cumin – they were every bit as good as we hoped they’d be, and we relished every moment cracking open the bright red shells and devouring the bouncy, white flesh within.

It’s always a pleasure reporting on a great new London restaurant, and Plaquemine Lock certainly falls into that category.

Fay Maschler reviews Plaquemine Lock: Get seduced by this ...

In drumming up companions for a meal at Louisiana-style pub-restaurant Plaquemine Lock, I work into emails references to jambalaya, crawfish pie and filé gumbo, address one chap as ma cher amio (well, he is) and promise that we’ll have good fun on the bayou.

Jacob Kenedy, chef/patron and creator of Plaquemine Lock, has sensibly resisted too much kitsch and nostalgia in the raucously colourful pub interior, apart from that to which he is fully entitled.

In 1909 his great-grandmother Carrie B Schwing cracked a bottle of champagne to open Plaquemine Lock in Louisiana, enabling family barges to transfer timber from the bayou to the Mississippi river.

So enlivening and, in London, rare is Cajun, Creole and essentially southern American cooking — RIP Brad McDonald’s Lockhart and Shotgun — that I make three visits to Plaquemine Lock.

No jambalaya is in evidence but gumbo, a soup with andouille (spicy sausage), shrimp and okra thickened with a dark roux and traditionally the powdered sassafras known as filé, comes in cup for £4.40 or bowl for £12.

Plaquemine Lock, London N1, restaurant review: Chevys, levées ...

A confession: having just about survived the culinary equivalent of a one-night stand, in a different time zone with a sexy stranger who doesn’t speak your language and doesn’t care, it must be said that the two occasions in my life when I have been the most postprandially miserable – literally keening and weeping for 24 hours alone in an Italian hotel room and then, weirdly, in a French hotel room a few weeks later, also alone – came about as a direct result of interaction with langoustines.

Occasions when any short-term gains (the beauty of that balmy al fresco Italian evening; the fun we had at that sprauncy Parisian hotspot) were permanently cancelled out by “The Horror”.

As a result, I shellfishly decided that life was too short to ever be quite so miserable (especially in a hotel room) again.

Plaquemine Lock, London: 'celebration of Louisiana' restaurant review

The chef renowned for his gutsy Italian cooking at Soho’s Bocca di Lupo has chosen to take over a north London pub and turn it into a celebration of the food of the Louisiana basin.

Which is to say the food of New Orleans is about making the best of poverty: there are rugged, gnarly sausages made with belly and loin and eyelid, because none of the pig must be wasted.

The Plaquemine Lock (formally the Prince of Wales pub) is both a love letter to this food and a tribute to his grandmother, Virginia Campbell, who was born into a famous Louisiana family in the town of Plaquemine near Baton Rouge, and who died last year aged 102.

Gumbo, by the cup and bowl, is as it should be: a deep, luscious stew of sausage and chicken, with crawfish added late on so they don’t tense up, in a reassuringly thickened liquor so profound it can give focus to an aimless life.

Over at Bocca di Lupo Kenedy became renowned for his sausage making, and the smoked pork boudin here, served with the nose twitch of pickled okra, is another fine example.