Lussmanns, Tring

The Herts-based fish and grill restaurant continues to grow, showing the sustainable approach to its whole operation is a winning formula

- Richard Cawthorne

There’s a lot to say about the Herts success story called Lussmanns but let’s talk about the food first. Andrei Lussmann has had a thing about sustainability long before it became fashionable. He works at it, maintaining links with the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA), Marine Stewardship Council and the like. The result is a menu that looks simple, with a few exceptions, and delivers what it promises.

My visit to Tring yielded a monkfish puttanesca dish with lemon mash (£20.95) that could hold its own anywhere, while my fellow critic was even more voluble about the free range duck leg with sticky red cabbage (£14.95), which she rated the best she had ever had.

Andrei may have been an early believer in sustainability but he had his own ideas about what the term should involve. Backed by a hospitality and business degree from Birmingham Polytechnic and an early successful career encompassing Pizza Express and Corney and Barrow among others, he began introducing elements of it after setting out on his own with café-style eateries in London before moving to Herts and opening the first Lussmanns Fish and Grill in 2004 in Hertford.