Shotgun, London W1 - restaurant review: A US-style barbecue joint that floods the senses

The kind of sensory flood which could persuade you that mankind evolved on Earth in order to devour seared meat

A handsome, marble-topped bar at the far end serves exotic, nouveau-Deep South cocktails constructed by Matt Whiley from Fantastic Mr Fox

Say what you like about Shotgun, the new barbecue restaurant in London's West End, but it must be the narrowest joint in town. I've seen wider telephone booths. Dwarfed by its neighbour, a substantial new branch of Dishoom, its frontage is so modestly proportioned that you can't believe there can be tables and chairs inside with people walking around them. But the clue is in the name: in the American South, a “shotgun shack” is a dwelling so simple that you could fire a shotgun through the front door and have it exit through the back without hitting stairs, furniture or intermediate walls.

Inside Shotgun, you look down a single carriageway of slightly confusing design ideas. The teak-dark wood, off-white walls rag-rolled to look a bit dirty, yucca plants in pots, brass lamps, leather seating and big ceiling fans suggest a Victorian gentlemen's club (possibly in some colonial hill station) converted into a 1930s Chicago steakhouse.

What it doesn't much resemble is a Stateside BBQ shack. I know this because my son Max was with me. At 24, he's lived in New Orleans and knows his stuff. “In a Louisiana barbecue shack, you'd have neon lights and styrofoam cups and signs saying 'Be Nice or Leave',” he said. “It's good here, but it's not… shacky enough.” (The chef, Brad McDonald, who hails from Yazoo City, Mississippi, later told me it was “inspired by New Orleans cocktail lounges”.)

A handsome, marble-topped bar at the far end serves exotic, nouveau-Deep South cocktails constructed by Matt Whiley from Fantastic Mr Fox: an Aliciatore, which involves barbecued chicory vodka, coffee liqueur and home-made sarsaparilla; and a Mescal Roux, which combines fermented Trinity (gumbo) Mescal with jalapeno bitters and lime, and seems guaranteed to induce hallucinations.

If you're thinking this place sounds desperately masculine, you're right. Five minutes after we arrived, a quartet of young bankers in dark suits came in; it was like the cast of Entourage arriving. Half an hour later, there were five more, apparently unconnected with the first lot, except by tailor. The only women in the place were on the staff. Word has already spread about this place – it's a sister restaurant to Lockhart, the Southern-cuisine restaurant in Marylebone, where McDonald introduced thunderstruck diners to his grilled chicken oysters and shrimp with grits.

The menu is as thin as the room. Starters are cheap and a bit perfunctory (boiled peanuts? Pimento cheese?) and it's hard to tell what they're doing in a BBQ establishment. Devilled quail's egg in a small bath of crunchy popcorn, was more puzzling than appealing. A startling dish of slow-cooked pig's ear was mildly revolting in its gelatinous, chewy orange glory, slathered in a sweet molasses sauce flecked with nuts and spring onion; even with the sour pancake towels they gave us to wrap it in, it was a bit of a chore to finish.

The main event offers six meats, and just that: corn-fed chicken, Muscovy duck breast, pulled sucking pig, baby back ribs, point-end brisket, and “Jacob's ladder” – which, like brisket, is breast meat, but cut from the lowest end of the diaphragm where the ribs are smallest and the meat/fat ratio most even. Max had a combo-plate of brisket and duck breast: the latter seemed untouched by a barbecue – pink and rather pretty, like jewellery – while the former was fabulously tender, smoky and sweet. I hungrily ordered both pulled pig, which was oddly flavourless, and the Jacob's ladder, which was sourced from Yorkshire, served tepid and simply fabulous. The soft, yielding texture of the de-boned meat, the flame-drenched umami sexiness brought by lots of rubbing with salt, pepper and brown sugar – it was the kind of sensory flood which could persuade you that mankind evolved on Earth in order to devour seared meat, whatever anyone says to the contrary. Our charming, heftily bearded waiter brought four sauces, of which I can recommend the Kansas City hot, which packs a cayenne wallop, and the Carolina, which brings Tabasco and vinegar to your taste buds, and tears to your eyes.

A small tub of cherry ice-cream, and a contrastingly massive banana pudding (somewhere between trifle and banoffee pie) rounded things off creamily. Shotgun also offers brioche-bun sandwiches of pulled pork, belly bacon, baloney and smoked ox tongue, nice enough lunchtime snacks for £11. But if you're shopping anywhere near Oxford Circus, you'd be mad to miss the brisket or the Jacob's ladder. Brad McDonald's new operation doesn't offer sophisticated cooking, but lovers of American soul-food – and dedicated carnivores – will certainly worship at his Shotgun shrine.

More information

Shotgun, 26 Kingley Street, London W1 (020 3137 7252)

Around £25 a head, before drinks and service

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