It opened less than a year ago
Lapin at Cargo 2, Wapping Wharf(Image: Paul Gillis/Reach Plc)
A French restaurant at Bristol’s foodie hotspot Wapping Wharf, has been shortlisted for two awards at the Trencherman’s Awards this year. Lapin, which opened less than a year ago, is in the running for two awards in the Best Newcomer and Best Bar List categories.
The restaurant has seen a record number of votes from diners across the South West, accounting for its place among the shortlist. While its wine lists, often described as being one of the biggest hitting and freely pouring in the city, is also the reason it features in that second category.
With round two of public voting already underway, restaurateur Dan O’Regan and executive chef, Jack Briggs-Horan, the team also behing BANK in Totterdown, now have an opportunity to add to an impressive list of accolades already achieved for their second restaurant. This includes being named by SquareMeal as one of the UK’s Top 100 Restaurants for 2026 last month, a spot in The Good Food Guide, and huge praise from one of Britain’s most respected critics, Grace Dent, who picked Lapin out as one of her standout dining experiences of 2025.
Dan, owner and founder of Lapin, said: “The South West is home to one of the most exciting and dynamic restaurant scenes around – and has discerning diners to match – so we’re really honoured to have been shortlisted twice at this year’s Trencherman’s Awards. Jack and I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to vote, and for helping to make Lapin such a vibrant dining spot since we opened.
Inside Lapin at Cargo 2, Wapping Wharf(Image: Paul Gillis/Reach Plc)
“The joy of hospitality comes from happy customers, so it means a lot to have so many people getting behind us.”
Lapin opened at Wapping Wharf’s Cargo 2 venue of shipping containers back in April last year, serving up a ‘fresh and playful spin on classic French cooking using the best seasonal produce from the UK and Europe’. By July, food critic Grace Dent had named it among the best restaurants in the UK, describing it as “a peculiar, meta, slightly earnest, definitely delicious French restaurant that you would never, ever find in France – not least because no one in France would be seen dead eating in an old metal box.”
Grace and her dining partner tried the asparagus with sauce gribiche and beurre noisette, the chicken schnitzel with oyster mushroom, chicken wing and madeira jus and St Émilion au chocolat.
She said she would, on the whole, recommend Lapin “because this is a menu that could thaw the iciest of hearts” and that Bristolians were “lucky to have it”. She added: “It’s only early days, and they’re still finding their feet, but mange tout, Rodders, mange tout.”
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Dining and Cooking