Source is the type of restaurant you really want to succeed in what at times can be a pretty cut-throat business. It’s fiercely independent, the people behind it and involved are really rather charming and it aims to showcase the best sourced local seasonal ingredients it can- so on that basis it should have plenty of the ingredients to be a successful venture.

Seasonal, simple and social is the message owners, in the form of husband and wife team Johan de Jager and wife Elsa, send out to the customers of the Battersea neighbourhood restaurant that overlooks Ransome’s Dock and was once home to a historic ice cool house

The affable Johan and Elsa, whose experience in the trade stretches from Perth in Australia to New York, took over the restaurant around 16 months ago. Before that for more than two decades it had been the highly popular and well regarded Ransome’s Dock. Its new name is a reference to London’s only natural spring under the building from which filtered water is sourced and sold in the restaurant, with all proceeds going to Magic Breakfast, a charity which feeds hungry children hearty breakfasts to promote learning.

The Source burger

Source is tucked away off Parkgate Road, and although only a few hundred yards from the iconic Albert Bridge and Battersea Park, you can’t deny it might not be the best location to attract passing trade, so relies more on locals and reputation.

Once you get inside you are be glad you have discovered it. The welcome is warm and the new owners have transformed the inside space with an eye catching stripped back industrial theme design, which despite some of its starkness gives off a light and cosy feel to the dining space, enhanced by a glass frontage and side views over the dock.

There are exposed concrete beams, copper piping and ducting, exposed wall some white washed, extremely comfy metal chairs and well positioned wooden tables that sit comfortably with the pressed concrete flooring and funky squirrel lights to create atmosphere. The zinc topped bar area with stools is smart and neat and you can watch the food coming out of the glass fronted kitchen area.

The menu is sensibly compact – something I always like – on the Saturday lunch for my visit there were five starters and six mains, plus the option of a concise but hugely appetising brunch offering. There are also no punches pulled with an interesting wine list, with a number sold by the glass at competitive prices.

While we perused the menu we enjoyed a glass of refreshing Mirabello Brut Extra Dry Vento Prosecco (£6.50).

Crab toast

My starter of crab toast, brown crab butter, burnt spring onion and chilli (£9) was a pure delight, slithers of flavoursome mouth-watering crab oozing out from every crevice and then later lovely little hits of chilli on the palette. Fiona went for the light option with bites of fried ricotta dumplings (£5) which she declared were light, tasty and sat perfectly with a swipe of vibrant beetroot puree.

The high quality of food was maintained with my main of well-cooked mullet, with a crispy skin and soft flesh, sitting on a delightful fine chicory tart with earthy mushroom puree and Jerusalem artichoke (£16. It was a clever plate of fresh well-seasoned and balanced seasonal food that really came together and left the taste buds more than satisfied.

Now a burger might not be the most exciting choice, but done well they can make any meal and Fiona's Source burger with stilton, bacon, beetroot and wedges (£13.50) hit all the right notes. Well cooked, medium rare, it squirted out flavour and the addition of a black pudding and bourbon sauce was interesting. We enjoyed a glass of Santiago Rioja Crionza 2010 (£5) with our mains, which slipped down exceedingly well.

Ricotta

I still found room for a desert of chocolate tart with bay leaf (which you could actually detect and taste) ice cream (£6.50) which maintained the high standards of serving reasonably simple food very well, and not trying to over complicate things.

Service was relaxed but attentive at the right times and well-paced from the kitchen.

As lunch lingered on into early afternoon I vowed to return to Source in the summer months and enjoy the outside area overlooking the dock which will then really come into its own.

Another interesting aspect of the site the maze of basement rooms that were once ice coolers and sit underneath the restaurant, one of which houses the spring. Johan and Elsa have turned one of these into a space which can be hired out for private functions, a cool (pardon the pun) venue in every sense of the word.