Lapin, Wapping Wharf: 'Lapin has done its homework and nailed the detail'
The team behind BANK has pulled the rabbit out of the hat
You won’t find reviews like this on Google.
No influencer comps, no PR fluff — just honest, independent writing about where to eat in Bristol. If you value thoughtful, detailed reviews that tell the full story (rabbit legs and all), consider becoming a paying Saucer. It keeps The Bristol Sauce ad-free, fiercely independent, and totally obsessed with good food — just the way you like it. Plus, you’ll get access to a bit of bonus content every now and then.
But let’s hop to it. The wonderful Philip Sweeney has been to one of Wapping Wharf’s newest additions to bring us up to speed on the latest player in Bristol’s French food game.
Thanks for reading! ~ Meg
Notable amid a flurry of openings, Bristol has a new purveyor of high-quality French revival cooking, the best since littlefrench unleashed its hybrid tartare-Béarnaise sauce on a grateful Henleaze six years ago.
Lapin is the creation of Dan O’Regan and Jack Briggs-Horan, proprietor and chef of BANK in Totterdown. The concept is apparently Parisian bistro with the Bristol harbourside standing in for the Seine, though more obvious models are the neo-trad French trendsetters of London like Bouchon Racine and Josephine, and the current darling of Stroud foodiedom, Juliet. Unlike many naff pseudo bistros and brasseries – you know who you are – Lapin has done its homework and nailed the detail.
Neatly packed into three soldered together Cargo shipping containers in Wapping Wharf, Lapin is small, square, plain but pleasant. It’s well planned, with unadorned sage green walls, overhead lights, a wall of books and bottles, and a nice little vintage cocktail trolley for the digestifs in front of a semi exposed but non-intrusive kitchen.
There are a dozen or so tables close together, Paris-style, but not too close. A rabbit motif adorns the tableware, the servers’ old school white cotton jackets, the green leatherette wine list covers, and the bare wooden tables. Shame they didn’t go for paper table cloths. The proprietor and sommelier double as very effective waiters.
There’s music. Not Bad Bunny, they missed a trick there, but a selection attuned to the tastes of your mature Francophile, a bit of chanson, 1940s Left Bank jazz, restrained accordion, a touch easy listening but tastefully short of the full Edith (Piaf), and not too loud.
There is Lapin on the menu, in more ways than one. Rabbit isn’t that common anymore even in France, where it was once a staple of family menus. This is the fault, explains Jean-Robert Pitte, author of the Atlas Gastronomique de la France, of the attachement sentimental of les enfants for this little animal so easy to caress. For the adults of Wapping Wharf, however, easy to munch.
Lapin does a leg of rabbit with black pudding and apples (£27) but on the fifth night after opening, they’d sold out, as had their game dealer. Apparently, the entire batch he’d just shot on the golf course beside Bristol Airport had been wolfed down by Lapin’s eager new customers. If you’re coming in to land on runway 27 in the near future you may notice a paucity of flop-ears scurrying into the hedgerows.
“There’s no rabbit leg but there’s duck leg” explained our server helpfully — as if I was after an anatomical specimen for a medical experiment, rather than a gustatory experience. In fact the confit duck leg (£27) was pretty good, served with a “spring cassoulet”, which though not actually a cassoulet was a sensible and tasty nod to one, with well cooked coco de Paimpol beans, lardons and savoury Polish sausage in place of Toulouse.
Another main course, a wing of skate with sea vegetables (£28), was terrific, bathed in Vadouvan butter. Vadouvan is the distinctive mild curry condiment created by the French in seventeenth century Pondicherry and nowadays used, particularly with seafood, everywhere from the Paris kitchens of superstar Pierre Gagnaire to the recipe pages of Femme Actuelle.
There were good frites (£5), green beans in persillade (£5), the sophisticate’s version of chimichurri, and a luscious scene stealer of a potato puree (£6), the consistency of thick sauce, swimming in excess butter. Brown butter furthermore, a favourite ingredient of Lapin’s mothership BANK.
Rewinding to starters, rabbit was in fact present, and correct, in the form of good rillettes (£14), suitably moist and flavoursome, accompanied by a nice robust carrot marmalade. There was also a dense, succulent soufflé Suissesse (£17) naped in rich cheese sauce, as made famous by Le Gavroche in London, transferred to Bristol by littlefrench, and done by Lapin as well as either.
And, sign of real unobtrusive French savoir-faire, a salad of warm pig’s head meat with perfectly dressed chicory and dandelion (£15), the latter ironically the favourite salad of the lapin itself. The menu also has a curious section labelled accoutrements, featuring foie gras, but offered as “shavings” (£15), scoops of Rollright cheese (£7), and caviar by the spoon (£13) added to any dish you fancy.
Desserts are few and good. A large and accomplished éclair Suzette (£8), so called because of the orange and Grand Marnier flavouring of the filling, which was not simple crème pâtissière but the rarer crème diplomat, crème pat mixed with Chantilly. Or a Trou Normand of apple sorbet (£8) — a touch lumpy — with a choice of Somerset apple brandy, or Calvados, or both.
Last but far from least, Lapin has an outstanding wine list, sixty or so bottles, and uniquely in Bristol all available by the 125ml glass and half bottle carafe, ranging from rare finds like a red Pinot d’Aunis from the Loire at £14 a glass to a perfectly drinkable house rosé at £5. Just the thing to drown your remorse and keep the bill down if you’ve gone for foie gras and caviar on your rabbit, you pervert.
All words and photos by Philip Sweeney
Lapin, Unit 14, Cargo 2, Museum St, BS1 6ZA
Read next:
 | A guest post by
|
That skate wing looked sublime. Nice write up 👌🏽