The hottest restaurant in town is just another opportunity to shout at your tablemate. Perhaps Rock Lobster Food Co.’s success can be partially attributed to diners’ reluctance to shoulder the moral obligation to be good company. How can anyone know if you’re amusing or dull when the music (albeit wonderful) is turned way up and people are standing six deep at the bar — waiting for tables and shouting above the music? Since, of course, they don’t take reservations.

It being winter, every time the door opens, there’s a lovely draught coming through. If you are lucky enough to be seated in the back room, it’s quieter and warmer. The down-home lobster shack decor feels cozier back there, too, thanks to a wall cleverly constructed of old shipping crates.

Rock Lobster began life as a lobster roll pop-up and hit it big at the Toronto Underground Market. Chef/owner Matt Dean Pettit, a former wine broker, has a clever mission — to bring lobster down a socio-economic notch or three. Who doesn’t love lobster, and why shouldn’t the Ossington masses have access to it?

Lobster rolls are the resto’s signature dish. Fourteen dollars buys a pile of lobster in mayo on a buttery white roll with greasy, addictive, house-made potato chips and a McClure’s dill pickle (apparently a cult dill). It’s pleasant, but not how I want to eat my lobster. Nor is the house special drink, a Caesar with half a lobster tail. The drink is underpowered, and getting the lobster out of its shell requires more elbow grease than a cocktail deserves.

Lobster mac ’n’ cheese would work in more experienced hands. If you made a great cheese sauce, slapped it on al dente noodles and threw in fresh cooked lobster, I’d be in. But this version has, literally, no taste. The cheese is MIA, the noodles are flaccid and the small lobster bits throughout are of no help. As for jerk crab and shrimp, the taste is buttery rather than jerk-spiced, the sole consolation the generous number of snow crab legs for $13.

It is consoling that they do two things very well: there’s lobster poutine for the friendly price of $13. Who doesn’t love poutine? And it’s so good for you, too. This version is wonderful frites, impeccable Quebec cheese curds, delicate gravy built on lobster bisque and small chunks of lobster on top — which are pleasant but gratuitous.

The only dish that properly takes advantage of my favourite crustacean is lobster cappuccino, a deep-flavoured bisque — cleverly low on cream — served in a cup with froth on top and tasty little lobster chunks throughout. Which is good partly because so many of the other lobster items feature cold lobster — and anybody who’s compared the taste of a room temperature tomato to one from the fridge knows what cold does to flavour.

Am I sounding ill-tempered? Ought one not to be grateful for the democratization of lobster? In theory, yes. In practice, ho-hum.

Rock Lobster Food Co., 110 Ossington Ave., $50 Dinner for two

Joanne Kates trained at the Ecole Cordon Bleu de Cuisine in Paris. She has written articles for numerous publications, including the New York Times, Maclean’s and Chatelaine.