The idea
Cook what the boats bring in, and not much else
Nadia Okafor opened Harbourline after twelve years in other people's kitchens
with one rule: the menu is written after the boats are in, not before. Six
starters, six mains, four desserts. What we cannot get that morning is not on
it. Ten years on, the room has grown by eight terrace tables, the wine list by
sixty bottles, and the rule has not moved.
The people
Kitchen and front of house
Six people who have been here long enough to know the regulars by name.
Guest reviews
What people say on the way out
Four of the 1,200 reviews that add up to 4.9
Maya Ellis
Dinner, whole roasted bream
The fish is the point.
"We drove forty minutes on a Tuesday for the bream and it was worth every one of them. Skin like glass, flesh still soft, a wedge of lemon and nothing to get in the way. We have been back three times since."
Tom Vidal
Lunch, crab on toast
Lunch by the water.
"Two courses, a glass of white and the harbour in front of us for less than we spend on a bad pizza in town. The crab on toast is the best thing I ate all spring. Book the window table."
Priya Raman
Private dining, twelve for a birthday
They ran the whole evening.
"We had the harbour room for my father’s seventieth. Arjun agreed the menu with us in one phone call, Lucia paired the wines, and the kitchen fed twelve people at the same pace as a table of two. Nobody wanted to leave."
Ryan Parker
Dinner, mussels in cider
Somebody pours you a taste.
"I said I knew nothing about wine and the sommelier poured me three tastes before I picked one. The mussels came in a bowl of cider and cream that we mopped up with the bread. Unfussy, warm and very good."
