I ate at the city’s multi-million-pound retreat with beach views
Paul McAuley is a Senior Life Reporter for the Liverpool ECHO, focusing on communities from all walks of life who make the city so diverse and rich.
From new restaurant openings to cultural events, Paul specialises in covering everything that’s going on across the city.
Moving from Ireland, Paul studied journalism at Liverpool John Moores University before joining the ECHO in the summer of 2021. You can reach him on Twitter or his email.
Our mains at The Lake House
“It’s the best you will ever have”. These were the words that effortlessly slipped out of the mouth of my waiter on a quiet Monday evening. I, alongside my flatmate, Meghan, had ventured outside of Liverpool city centre for once to see what all the fuss was about when it came to Waterloo’s The Lake House.
The venue has been all over my TikTok ForYouPage, and after visiting on October 13, it is clear why. Jumping on the Merseyrail at Liverpool Central with a £4.40 ticket loosely hanging out of my pocket, we arrived at where we needed to be just shy of 30 minutes later.
Sitting down at a table for two, wrongly set up for a cute date night, we quickly disregarded one set of menus and went for the three-course meal option – the Early Diners Menu to be precise.
It offered a trio of dishes for £24, an investment we were more than happy to make given our stomachs’ rumblings. Considering the sparkling reviews of The Lake House’s restaurant, which opened in 2022, we decided in advance to both opt for a light lunch to make the most of the meal, and this was a choice well made.
The Lake House, Waterloo(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
Among the list of options was something for everyone. We went for the classic patatas bravas and houmous – two staples we always rely on when we venture outside the four walls of our Baltic Triangle home, because if it is not broken, don’t fix it.
Having said that, we did decide to add in calamari for good measure and now, with hindsight, we are glad we did as it was easily the star of the show.
I always find with salt and pepper very few places are able to perfect the right amount of seasoning, at least to my taste buds.
Our starters at The Lake House
However, the chefs at The Lake House did it with ease – it was the ideal strength to still allow the mild, yet slightly sweet flavour of the prepared squid to shine through.
Typically we would always share our dishes, picking up a bit of this and bit of that with every forkful, but I was quick to claim this dish all to myself.
The houmous starter came with nachos, as opposed to the usual flatbread, and I strongly feel there needs to be a petition to make this the standard going forward.
The Lake House Waterloo is found on Cambridge Road
Despite my love of the calamari, it was actually my main dish that the waiter assumed would be the best I would ever had.
I decided on the chicken Milanese and while the dish couldn’t be faulted, I’ve only ever had it from two other venues on Bold Street – Albert Schloss and The Italian Club – so it would be unfair of me to dismiss the many other Italian restaurants throughout the city.
Sitting across my creamy dish was the restaurant’s signature fish and chips. It came complete with a mountain of mushy peas, which I daren’t even touch because of the texture, and triple-cooked chips.
Our desserts at The Lake House
Visually, the chips looked a little too burnt for my liking, but don’t let this fool you, as inside was a fluffiness the Silentnight hippo and duck could only dream of. Unfortunately, the desserts are where the restaurant fell down in standards for me.
The base of the cheesecake and banoffee pot could’ve been a little bit softer – partly due to the taste but more so to stop the embarrassment of the pudding skidding across the plate and the deafening clink of the cutlery hitting the metal that followed after you managed to break it apart.
The restaurant has already established itself as a big contender in the industry in my eyes.