Trap Kitchen

Indulgent Seafood & Chicken

76 Bedford Hill, London SW12 9HR

£

Lobster, Chicken, Prawns, Mac and Cheese, Waffles, Buttery Corn, Snow Crab. Dreaming again? I know I am.

Trap Kitchen is the brainchild of Prince Cofie Owusu, and he certainly cooks like a king. Now with three permanent restaurant sites in Balham’s Bedford Hill, Birmingham and Manchester, Owusu has built up a cult following with over 150k followers on Instagram at the time of writing. The name Trap Kitchen he describes as referring top hard graft: from the humble beginnings of his mother’s kitchen in Camberwell to serving the likes of Wiley and Jourdan Dunn. Since stumbling across the Instagram page pre-lockdown, I long anticipated when I might get my claws into one of these platters.

One Saturday evening, after a quick bottle at The Bedford (now owned by Three Cheers Pub Group who also do seriously banging food), me and 4 friends went to sample some of the magic. Inside was intimate, plush, kind of boujie in a low key way – think a velvet basement of a members club with hidden booths and dark interiors. We were given a booth which fit 5 of us comfortably and ordered a collection of cocktails immediately. Some of us chose zombies which arrived in massive glass skulls, flaming of course. I opted for a take on a pina colada – so good I ordered it twice, and those that those who didn’t have it the first time around ordered it the second ;)

Service was quick and friendly, and the menu short enough to know that these guys stick with what they know and do it really, really well. For food, 4 of us split into pairs and ordered two Buckets: 2 snow crab clusters or 2 lobster tails, 5 bang bang prawns, mac n cheese or Spanish rice, oreo topped waffle, buttered corn, and egg for £40. You can choose to have this as a half portion in form of The Slab, but this only has 1 snow crab cluster or 1 lobster tail, mac n cheese or Spanish rice, and oreo topped with waffle – so you miss out on the corn and the bang bang prawns. The last member of opted for the chicken instead, which was equally as desirable.

Everything arrived in the infamous foil trays as pictured on the Instagram account, and whilst we were given cutlery, we were fully at home with getting our hands dirty on this occasion. The amount of food we got I’d say was great – for £20 you’re getting some seriously decent and expensive pieces of seafood, cooked perfectly (juicy, tender) and soaked in a brilliant and indulgent sauce (butter, garlic, slightly sweet). I would say we could have done with a mac and cheese each rather than sharing, given it was so cheesy, saucy and hot without being overcooked one bit – so if you end up splitting the bucket order an extra one of these. The Oreo waffles were the only thing in the tray short of superb, as they were cold by the time we got to them and slightly dry due to a lack of Oreo sauce.

The bill came to just under £40 for a full meal and two cracking cocktails each – a bargain if you ask me. Is this the kind of food you can eat every day? No, probably not. But as a one-off indulgence every now and then which was born from humble and homegrown beginnings - I’d sign up to be a regular any day.

OVERALL RATING: ****

https://www.instagram.com/trapkitchen/?hl=en