The aptly named Tincan, in Soho, London’s famous entertainment district, is a restaurant with a difference. In fact some would say that it is not a restaurant at all because it does not have a chef or even a kitchen.
It only serves canned seafood, although upmarket canned seafood at that. The menu features Portuguese mackerel in olive oil at GBP 7 (USD 11.16, EUR 8.80), Icelandic smoked cod livers at GBP 10 (USD 15.94, EUR 12.58) and Galician urchin caviar at GBP 18 (USD 28.70, EUR 22.64). The top price quoted on the menu is GDP 22 (USD 35.03, EUR 27.65).
The seafood is served in the can with bread and, depending on the review, either “a few lettuce leaves” or “finely-diced shallots, chopped parsley, lemon and olive oil.”
There are no starters, no desserts, no coffee or tea. Two red and two white wines are available, plus what is claimed to be the world’s first beer made with seawater. Er Boqueron is a Spanish artisan beer produced using Mediterranean seawater from Valencia.
Tincan opened in mid September initially for a six-month period, although if it proves successful then presumably this period will be extended either in this location or somewhere else.
The restaurant is the brainchild of AL_A, an international design and architecture studio. While designing a new cultural center in Lisbon, Portugal, the agency discovered a former fishing tackle shop which had been transformed into a tiny restaurant serving only tinned seafood.
“What started as lunch quickly became an idea, and subsequently a new project: to bring the culture and sensibility of an architect’s studio to a restaurant serving the best tinned fish in the world,” a spokesman for the company said. ‘Tincan elevates the humble tin to an object of desire in an environment designed by AL_A. Everything in the restaurant from light fittings and wall displays, to tables and chairs, was created specifically for the space. The idea is very compelling: no kitchen, the finest tinned seafood delicacies, super healthy, and great graphics with the tin as the hero.”
Whether the canned seafood on offer is indeed the finest available is, of course, a matter of opinion, although one reviewer commented that a particular variety of anchovy, described as “probably the best you ever eat,” certainly lived up to that statement. ‘The anchovies had been cured to the point of an almost honeyed sweetness — somehow not fishy, but also distinctly and traceably from the sea.” Quite a commendation.
Martin Jaffa of Callander McDowell in his ReLAKSation newsletter made the point that although the restaurant serves only fish, “in the various write-ups we have seen, there is not a single mention of sustainability, or certification, or the environment. This is about good tasting fish and a unique experience. If we want people to start eating fish or eat more if it, then initiatives like ‘Tincan’ are the answer. The endless prattle of sustainability and the like is just a massive turn off to consumers (that is not to say that the fish should not be produced in a responsible way, just that it is an issue for the canners not the consumer).”
He may well have a point. As to the success of this venture, we shall have to wait and see. What may work in Soho, which is full of different types of restaurants and is a “trendy” area, may well not work in other locations.
