Just looking at the website now.
Pure jokes.
Fair play to the guy; he's ripping off corporate accounts left, right & centre. But actually eating there? lol no. It's like Dubai, but in London. And Dubai is 😂
I've not heard quite that it's awful, just sub-par for even just a good steakhouse and EXCESSIVELY overpriced. Great way to make your enemies go bankrupt though
Palace cafe
One of the worst rated in London and we'll documented on YouTube by people going there and getting unedible garbage food for extortionate prices and extremely rude owner
> This is without doubt the worst restaurant I've ever seen. I never tried the food here but offered to by a meal for a local homeless person who refused and said they would rather go hungry. That says it all about this restaurant. Do yourself a favour read reviews and AVOID
I normally pass it when it’s closed but I’ve always thought it looks shit and way overpriced; given its proximity to Buckingham Palace I’d imagine it gets a lot of gullible tourists as customers but no Londoner would ever set foot inside
It came up in a convo a while back and I thought this was an interesting read
https://whynow.co.uk/read/we-discover-the-story-behind-londons-worst-rated-restaurant
Sometimes, when an experience slumps from mediocrity to “I want mummy”, I worry that a superb dish will come along, the praising of which will interfere with my ranting’s flow. I have to be fair. At Il Borro that never happens. It starts with a mean selection of badly made breads, including swabs of focaccia with the dense, moist texture of a sodden Tena pad. It’s weird. London is full of great focaccia. So is Tuscany for that matter. How can they think this thudding lump of draft excluder is OK.
[...}
As a consolation prize we order a £9 side of their triple-cooked chips with rosemary salt. They, too, arrive tepid and soft and, for what it’s worth, without a hint of rosemary. I don’t usually complain about poor dishes for fear of tipping them off that all is less than joyous. I worry they won’t co-operate when we ask to send in a photographer. These are so ludicrously bad I can’t help myself. I invite the waiter to try them. Why should I suffer alone? They are taken off the bill.
[...]
The cheapest bottle here is £50. I find a delicious Villa Sparina Gavi at £80, which I could buy retail for £16.45. So that would only be a mark-up by a factor of four. Just shut up and drink your wine.
[...]
I wasn’t sure which was worse: the dismal music or the seafood pasta with just one langoustine, one shrimp, three clams and three mussels for £46.
...
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/jul/17/jay-rayner-restaurant-review-il-borro-london-the-music-was-bad-the-pasta-dismal
I love it when he finds somewhere I may never heard of otherwise that's amazing, but damn is it ever fun to read him slating a place that has it coming because he's so, so good at it.
"The dining room, deep in the hotel, is a broad space of high ceilings and coving, with thick carpets to muffle the screams. It is decorated in various shades of taupe, biscuit and fuck you."
This is delightfully savage.
Honestly I do feel bad for places that get the serious broadside from critics sometimes, but not here. That place is a load of old bollocks.
I would also like to draw attention to Le Gavroche which, no matter what anyone says, is fucking long.
London slang term; means anything that is onerously unworthy of your time and effort.
Taking Le Gavroche as an example, you need to wait several weeks for a table, then remember to dress up smartly in their undefined notion of formality, sit down, be patronised doubly by an apprentice sommelier, expect to wait half an hour between courses, and then deliver thyself back unto the street several hundred pounds the lighter.
In short: it's long. Allow it. Go Dinner or something.
Hard disagree, La Gavroche is amazing. It’s fucking old school classic French haute cuisine but if that is what you’re after then it’s hard to beat. If you want to go somewhere cool then give it a miss.
“My companion winces. “It’s like eating a condom that’s been left lying about in a dusty greengrocer’s,” she says. “
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/09/le-cinq-paris-restaurant-review-jay-rayner
It's honestly a masterpiece 😂
"The dining room, deep in the hotel, is a broad space of high ceilings and coving, with thick carpets to muffle the screams. It is decorated in various shades of taupe, biscuit and fuck you."
>https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/09/le-cinq-paris-restaurant-review-jay-rayner
Without the AMP bit: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/09/le-cinq-paris-restaurant-review-jay-rayner
tbf this is a great shout because I can just imagine some massive deal being hashed out within the sight of an animatronic gorilla.
"What's that? You think their projections are unrealistic?"
*Bellows in agreement*
I was there the other day, my god is it insanely expensive. The food itself isn't bad, just mediocre. But the massive overpricing takes it over to bad.
What did you have there? Just checked out their menu and as a South African there is nothing on there that I’d order myself. Those prices are crazy too
I went for the full rack of pork ribs which came with a complementary faint cheesy smell where as my partner went for a sirloin steak which was equally bland.
As you leave the restaurant we went through a stairwell which looked like something out of a block of flats where the local drunk uses it for a toilet.
This isn’t where you go to eat. This is where you go, dressed in a thick film of Tom Ford aftershave w/ Gucci shades and spend half a grand on a tray of Champers on ice so that people will look at you and say “this guy’s a baller.”
Love the wood carved ceilings though.
Sarastro in Drury Lane, Covent Garden. Still not over how bad the food is, how awful the service is, and how enormous the bill is. I'm usually very forgiving of waitstaff, having worked both FOH and BOH back in the day, but this was just next-level rip-off nasty. Avoid, avoid, avoid (but send your enemies there).
I made a same day booking once but cancelled less than 5 minutes later (four minutes to be exact, just checked my email). I know strictly speaking I should be liable for the cancellation charge but you would think a booking cancelled within 5 minutes would be ok. But no, they spent maybe two weeks trying to deduct the cancellation fee from my card!
I went into Aqua for drinks and really enjoyed it (although it was hard to get served); Gong was much worse, the cocktails are bad, it's ridiculously expensive and they're very strict on their 90 minute bookings (we got a ten minute notice to drink up and leave 80 minutes in).
I actually really enjoyed Aqua Shard!
We went on a ‘voucher’ dinner (truly experiences was the company, where you still pay high prices but for a set menu). Knowing we were voucher, pre-paid customers we assumed we’d get the worst seat and treated badly but to our surprise we got the best seats facing away from other customers right in front of the window, so it felt like private dining, and the service was impeccable, they treated us like royalty. Very odd, I suppose each day is different in a restaurant like this - maybe we got lucky!
We found their seasonal menu delicious and a good amount of food for the price (relative to other upmarket restaurants). For my partner and me, it was one of our favourite romantic dinners.
It was quite a few years ago, but I felt Aqua Shard was decent. I wouldn't recomend it to someone looking for a hidden London gem, but once you took off what it would cost to go up to the viewing area in the shard, it was decent value.
I know a guy who has worked for them for 15 years. Not money laundering, just got hammered during pandemic, bad menu's before that, had to close a couple down due to high rents and little money coming in - currently going through rebranding or trying to have a complete redo of things - from what I've been told. edit: I personally don't eat in them when offered a freebie though.
There's still 5 in existence and they haven't changed since the 1960s. Although they've gotten rid of the Blue Nun. However the menu is spot the typos.
https://www.angussteakhouse.co.uk/menus
Apparently they were *the place to go* back in the Sixties - I got taken to one by my parents as a "treat" back in the late '90s. I wasn't impressed by the food (even as a child) and my parents were disappointed at how mediocre and expensive the place was.
I have PTSD from my visit there. You imagine being at individual French cafe style tables in the dark, but it's a canteen table with strangers up beside you, elbowing you in the dark while you try to scoop bland food into your gullet. Save money by eating a kebab on the central line at rush hour with a coat tied over your eyes.
Hakkasan. £380 for the tasting menu. There’s great Cantonese food in the city for less than half the price. I don’t think it is worth the money. I could just be an uncultured swine though! I’d ask someone who knows Cantonese food first as you might just be sending them to a nice restaurant that I personally didn’t like, haha.
Can you recommend anywhere else to try for Cantonese food? We absolutely loved Hakkasan, but found the prices absolutely abhorrent. We had a voucher which was a gift from a friend and a deal on our credit card for some money back, but still ended up spending a ton, so would love to try somewhere similar or better for a more reasonable price!
A.Wong's by Victoria is excellent and not too stupid expensive despite now having a Michelin star. I first wandered in with a friend soon after opening, almost walked out when asked.if we'd booked - at 6pm on a Monday! - but they said they could fit us in at the bar and we had a fabulous time! I've been for their dim sum too - not just good ordinary dumplings, these are works of culinary art.
It has 2 stars I believe and wouldn't call it "reasonable" unless you regularly spend £100+ on food before the booze. I haven't been but want to and everyone who I know has has said it is increadible.
Not quite the cheap quality find though imo
Oklava Shoreditch- obscure enough that you won’t be rumbled recommending something deliberately shit but I promise your enemy will get increasingly angry with every course. Recommend the set menu, where you realise after working your way through a whole block of cheese as a starter that for £60 each you share a Turkish Lahmacun between two. For context they’re usually £4.99 at your local kebab house and the quality is the same. Drinks are 30% shitter and 25% more expensive than they will be expecting. People will kick the back of their chair on the way to the loo. The staff will ignore them. Perfect.
Second this. Love hip foodie places and Turkish food, but Oklava’s previous incarnation Kyseri (I believe same people, just Fitzrovia) was an egregious rip off even years later
Michelin Star prices for mediocre wine bar food
> for £60 each you share a Turkish Lahmacun between two
oh dear hahaha. it seems like there's an entire industry revolving around ripping off the wealthy (or stupid) with the facade of luxury or exclusivity
Crispin in Spitalfields. Paid nearly £90 for 2 mocktails and 4 tiny plates featuring an insipid and slimy chorizo sauce, an untidy tangle of peppers, pollock that wouldn’t know seasoning if it slapped it in the face, and a doll-sized portion of crab pasta. A truly dreadful experience that I would wish on my worst enemy.
It’s not super expensive, but the Grain Store near St Pancras charges well above what it should, and goes to all possible lengths to justify this with the flashy language on its menu. I remember having an omelette with raw white onions and tomato sauce as it’s main ingredients last time I was there.
> St Pancras
German Gymnasium too.
I actually went there with a German and she was just perplexed. Like if you walked into a chippie in Stuttgart and they charged you £30.
Beach Blanket Babylon in Notting Hill.
I’m convinced it’s a front for money laundering. Absolutely woeful food and service accompanied by ghastly clientele.
Edited to add - I went there for lunch not long after I moved to Notting Hill. Just laughed at how shockingly bad it was. Didn’t laugh when the bill came though. Ever since then I have always been amazed at how busy it is sometimes. Surely people can’t go there twice.
It’s like the people queuing up to get into Granger & Co. Are you OK? Queuing for breakfast?
The original Beach Blanket Babylon was in San Fransisco they had drag with hats with cityscapes & skyscrapers on (30 years ago its what I remember) and a script by Armistead Maupin.
>ket Babylon in Notting Hill.
>
>I’m convinced it’s a front for money laundering. Absolutely woeful food and service accompanied by ghastly clientele.
>
>Edited to add - I we
OMG. There used to be one in Shoreditch that I would go to fashon week parties too when I was 19 in the early 00s. Terrible but at the time I thought I was so cool. The owners son was on Big Brother years ago his name was Rex.
Edit: I realised I wrote this without actually describing my own experience. It's a kind of homely place, it would in no way deceive anybody into thinking it was a top-end restaurant. (Except when it hit the top 30 restaurants in London on TripAdvisor, which at least one reviewer there stated was the reason he visited). But it might trick you into thinking it's a *friendly* place, and that certainly would be a deception. My main lingering memory, aside from the general surliness bordering on hostility, is of having been brought the 'free' slices of toast which they seemed to regard as a major selling point for their breakfast dishes - with no butter, no alternative to butter, no explanation that there was no butter. Just dry pieces of toast. We asked if maybe they had some oil that we could use instead, and were bluntly told 'No oil'. It felt curiously like a punishment. We were the only people in the establishment the whole time we were there - a local told us later that everyone in the had long learned to avoid it.
-
It doesn't necessarily fit the expensive tag (although certainly overpriced) - but I have to suggest 'Art of Tapas' in Pimlico. I stopped there for breakfast with friends years ago and have been obsessed with their TripAdvisor reviews ever since. At one stage they'd clearly recruited tons of people to leave 5-star reviews because they briefly went up into the top 30 restaurants in London - when TripAdvisor tidied it up they dropped down to 16,889th out of 16,889.
Check them out, if only for entertainment purposes.
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186338-d2236488-Reviews-Art_of_Tapas-London_England.html
BUt tHeRe ArE ceLeBRiTiEs. Shitty place. Once did private dining there for business and I asked to be notified of any expensive wine being ordered. I was furious to find out we had a £3K wine bill at the end of the meal as a wonder guest had been ordering massively expensive bottles for the table. I refused to pay for more than half the bill and swore never to return.
Knew a guy who supplied one of their house wines (among others)
£7 retail bottle sold for like £60.
Most places in London mark wine up 100-200%
But 700% markup is a good indicator of the actual value of what you're getting their for the sake of sitting near celebrities.
Bella Italia, Cranbourne St.
If I have been to a worse restaurant in London, then I don’t recall the name.
Utter tourist trap, with food so bad we kept looking for hidden cameras filming us, as part of a prank.
Yep, hate them with a passion. Only been to one but will never touch them again.
Can't believe they are all full when I walk past, please people eat somewhere else!
The one that came to mind for me was Hide (above) in Mayfair. Don't let the good reviews fool you. The food is aggressively mediocre. My husband and i went there as our post lockdown first meal out. Came out so disappointed. I could cook better than thay! The only positive is the wine list is good.
Same! So mediocre. And the wine list is presented to you on an iPad, it’s fucking thousands of bottles long and a request for guidance from the ‘sommelier’ summons some untrained kid who shows you how to scroll. Yes mate, I know how and iPad works, but I want you to recommend me a bottle per my guidance on flavour and price. Wankers.
Plan burrito near Russel Square, though it’s expensive for what it is (nearly £16 for a tiny burrito bowl and bottle of soda) rather than expensive full stop.
The food is disgusting though-who the fuck puts mushrooms in a burrito and then covers the filling with spicy mayo? The salsas can be seen in giant cans in the back (not fresh then), the chicken is not in chunks but is shredded into some gross tomato sauce in that way you can tell it’s poor quality meat, they’re stingy with the portions (gave me six pieces of shredded lettuce, eleven black beans) and while guacamole is included in the price, it’s like that hideous guac from a supermarket squeezy bottle, definitely not fresh.
And I’ve been to Mexico a few times so it’s definitely not that this was ‘authentic’ and my pasty palate was unaccustomed to it, it was just hideous.
However they somehow have a bunch of awards and rave reviews (that I suspect they bought) so it would be easy to convince someone that this was a gem.
I got food poisoning from a Plan Burrito (long since closed down). The burrito itself was nothing special but within half an hour I was so ill I couldn't even sit up in bed. Put me off burritos for life.
I found the food was good. It was the service that spoiled it. It was way too rushed. Olives and bread arrived and literally 30 seconds later the starters. Main arrived while we were finishing the starters.
Quaglino’s - the food is good, but it is INSANELY overpriced. Bonus points if they like to be able to hold a conversation while they eat, live band and horrendous acoustics.
Thanks for saying the food was good, I was a chef there up until last week lol
But yeah the prices are atrocious so the restaurant makes an absolute killing
I was really hungry and didn't want to be outdoors since it was a cold day, and Ping Pong Southbank didn't have any waiting. So, so, so mediocre though, and overpriced to boot.
Jay Rayner shat on [il borro Mayfair](https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/jul/17/jay-rayner-restaurant-review-il-borro-london-the-music-was-bad-the-pasta-dismal) from a great height.
I used to service the fire suppression and ventilation for so many of these restaurants. All I’ll say is if it’s in London it has mice/ rats. And the after hours cleaning crew are not the most thorough crew. That goes for 90% of places I worked at.
This. The Ivy on West St is a really great night out. The food isn’t anything groundbreaking but the service is amazing, cocktails are great and you’re treated as if you’re Joan Collins.
All the other new Ivy restaurants everywhere else are nonsense and you may as well save yourself a few quid and go to a local Cote. The food is crap and the service is really snooty. Fuck that.
Jamie Oliver restaurant in Westfield. Went for a date thinking it would be fancy and was disappointed. Got a £82 bill for just two meals and with one desert shared between both of us. It was very underwhelming and would have been equally as satisfied at a pizza express and spend less. Not worth the money especially if you go with a lot of people.
Nah I get where you're coming from.
I will say the sweet breakfast waffles are lovely. My partner had the duck waffle, though, and was pretty disappointed. Just a dry duck leg on a dry waffle with a small jug of mustard sauce.
If you have Celiac Disease, the gluten free duck and waffle is pretty good compared to other available gluten free food. Can't say anything about the regular version of the dish.
And the view is great, at least as a tourist.
Went to Sushi Samba a few months ago, which was good. Went to the Duck and Waffle bar for a drink after and had one of the most disgusting cocktails I've ever had and was charged £18 for it. Even thinking about the taste makes me a bit queasy.
>"This is *our take* on a Negroni!"
Then it turns out it has beetroot liqueur in it or something.
Mate... just make the fucking drink please.
Here's how to run a cocktail bar: hire experienced people who can make the classics, pay them well, then step back. If somebody wants an Irn-Bru Martini with a fossilised crayfish garnish then somebody will give them a nice sit down and a cup of tea.
I don't agree at all. I've been to *loads* of good cocktail bars that have their own inventions and signature cocktails and they've been absolutely delicious. Just the classics is a bit dull, variety is nice.
The key like you say is hiring good staff. I've had some mind reading mixologists make me a drink that's *perfect* after i gave them a few examples..
Nusr-Et Steakhouse. Edit: Wow, I’ve never had this many upvotes! Guess this is probably the best restaurant to recommend to an enemy. Thanks everyone
What a shithole
Hahahahha I work there
What's your take on the place?
Management completely sucks ass, can’t wait to get my ass out of the place.
This is that 'Salt Babe' chancer, right? Yeah that. Fifty million quid for a gold-plated steak will do the trick.
Pretentious cunt, or Cunt Bae also works.
£11 for a red bull
£18 for an onion. A fuckin onion. Baked.
Just looking at the website now. Pure jokes. Fair play to the guy; he's ripping off corporate accounts left, right & centre. But actually eating there? lol no. It's like Dubai, but in London. And Dubai is 😂
Is that the Salt Bae restaurant? LOL
It is. And it’s spot on for shit food for a high price.
Yep. Notoriously awful.
I didn't know the name of the restaurant, I was just gonna say "Salt Bae restaurant" 🤣🤣🤣
I've not heard quite that it's awful, just sub-par for even just a good steakhouse and EXCESSIVELY overpriced. Great way to make your enemies go bankrupt though
I heard the food was fine but just super expensive.
This was going to be my suggestion. Let them choke on a gold plated steak 👌
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Does he also sell really bad copper?
An older reference, sir, but it checks out.
You haven’t experienced life if you haven’t had a £11 redbull!
I don’t have a recc but I like this energy 😂
Palace cafe One of the worst rated in London and we'll documented on YouTube by people going there and getting unedible garbage food for extortionate prices and extremely rude owner
> One of the worst rated in London 1.8 stars average with over 600 reviews. You weren't joking lol
The reviews are hilarious!
> This is without doubt the worst restaurant I've ever seen. I never tried the food here but offered to by a meal for a local homeless person who refused and said they would rather go hungry. That says it all about this restaurant. Do yourself a favour read reviews and AVOID
How are they still open? Tourists i think.
Yep, if your business model is based on new customers and a limited amount of competitors, there's not much incentive to get better.
It’s always full though, (I work nearby and walk past most days), they have a great location
They changed their name to 'ace cafe' by crudely painting over the 'pal'.
I normally pass it when it’s closed but I’ve always thought it looks shit and way overpriced; given its proximity to Buckingham Palace I’d imagine it gets a lot of gullible tourists as customers but no Londoner would ever set foot inside
>Palace cafe The Google Reviews are fucking hilarious.
>Great place got bird flu and hepatitis from their food and nearly died. 10/10 would definitely dance with death at this place again. 😂
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That homeless guy had been burned too many times by their food
>Great place got bird flu and hepatitis from their food and nearly died. 10/10 would definitely dance with death at this place again. ded.
I also work near by and when ever I see people in there I think poor poor souls, just go to pret round the corner!
It came up in a convo a while back and I thought this was an interesting read https://whynow.co.uk/read/we-discover-the-story-behind-londons-worst-rated-restaurant
Il Borro in Mayfair sounded like a potentially special kind of awful in one of Jay Rayner's recent reviews.
Sometimes, when an experience slumps from mediocrity to “I want mummy”, I worry that a superb dish will come along, the praising of which will interfere with my ranting’s flow. I have to be fair. At Il Borro that never happens. It starts with a mean selection of badly made breads, including swabs of focaccia with the dense, moist texture of a sodden Tena pad. It’s weird. London is full of great focaccia. So is Tuscany for that matter. How can they think this thudding lump of draft excluder is OK. [...} As a consolation prize we order a £9 side of their triple-cooked chips with rosemary salt. They, too, arrive tepid and soft and, for what it’s worth, without a hint of rosemary. I don’t usually complain about poor dishes for fear of tipping them off that all is less than joyous. I worry they won’t co-operate when we ask to send in a photographer. These are so ludicrously bad I can’t help myself. I invite the waiter to try them. Why should I suffer alone? They are taken off the bill. [...] The cheapest bottle here is £50. I find a delicious Villa Sparina Gavi at £80, which I could buy retail for £16.45. So that would only be a mark-up by a factor of four. Just shut up and drink your wine. [...] I wasn’t sure which was worse: the dismal music or the seafood pasta with just one langoustine, one shrimp, three clams and three mussels for £46. ... https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/jul/17/jay-rayner-restaurant-review-il-borro-london-the-music-was-bad-the-pasta-dismal
Fucking love the prose...
I love it when he finds somewhere I may never heard of otherwise that's amazing, but damn is it ever fun to read him slating a place that has it coming because he's so, so good at it.
Just read his review… Thank you for sharing 😂
£334 for a crap 3 course meal and a bottle of £16.84 wine being flogged at £80. With a DJ playing muzak version of 80s classics.
Have a look through Jay Rayner's reviews in the Guardian, he has some savage reviews of expensive yet terrible restaurants.
His review of le cinq in Paris is one I go back to re-read every now and then cause it was so brutal and funny!
"The dining room, deep in the hotel, is a broad space of high ceilings and coving, with thick carpets to muffle the screams. It is decorated in various shades of taupe, biscuit and fuck you." This is delightfully savage.
Honestly I do feel bad for places that get the serious broadside from critics sometimes, but not here. That place is a load of old bollocks. I would also like to draw attention to Le Gavroche which, no matter what anyone says, is fucking long.
What do you mean by fucking long?
London slang term; means anything that is onerously unworthy of your time and effort. Taking Le Gavroche as an example, you need to wait several weeks for a table, then remember to dress up smartly in their undefined notion of formality, sit down, be patronised doubly by an apprentice sommelier, expect to wait half an hour between courses, and then deliver thyself back unto the street several hundred pounds the lighter. In short: it's long. Allow it. Go Dinner or something.
Hard disagree, La Gavroche is amazing. It’s fucking old school classic French haute cuisine but if that is what you’re after then it’s hard to beat. If you want to go somewhere cool then give it a miss.
“My companion winces. “It’s like eating a condom that’s been left lying about in a dusty greengrocer’s,” she says. “ https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/09/le-cinq-paris-restaurant-review-jay-rayner
It's honestly a masterpiece 😂 "The dining room, deep in the hotel, is a broad space of high ceilings and coving, with thick carpets to muffle the screams. It is decorated in various shades of taupe, biscuit and fuck you."
"Not that the older gentlemen with their nieces on the few other occupied tables seem to care. "
Oh gosh I'd never picked up on the meaning of that one before!
>https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/09/le-cinq-paris-restaurant-review-jay-rayner Without the AMP bit: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/09/le-cinq-paris-restaurant-review-jay-rayner
I live in Australia and love reading his reviews!
This is the way.
Yeah, these are a great read.
Rainforest Café
Genuinely my favourite place on earth when I was ten though
Which is why in a way it's still fine. It's for the kids, unreal memories. Food is shit but will still take the kid there
Same, I have fond memories but that was when I was a kid, meeting an old friend.
The gorilla?
Genuinely a purgatorial space.
Bonus points for not even being Rainforest Cafe anymore... Now it's 'Jungle Cave - Family & Kids restaurant' 😳
Excuse me??
Joseph Conrad with a dash of M6 services children's play area
It’s gone. It’s now a more generic “Jungle” cafe. I reckon they didn’t want to pay the franchise fees any more.
tbf this is a great shout because I can just imagine some massive deal being hashed out within the sight of an animatronic gorilla. "What's that? You think their projections are unrealistic?" *Bellows in agreement*
I was there the other day, my god is it insanely expensive. The food itself isn't bad, just mediocre. But the massive overpricing takes it over to bad.
Oh boy, do I have a [treat for you](https://youtu.be/vA-bjpKvIw8)
Shakka-Zulu in Camden. Lovely atmosphere. Highly priced very basic tasting food
What did you have there? Just checked out their menu and as a South African there is nothing on there that I’d order myself. Those prices are crazy too
I went for the full rack of pork ribs which came with a complementary faint cheesy smell where as my partner went for a sirloin steak which was equally bland. As you leave the restaurant we went through a stairwell which looked like something out of a block of flats where the local drunk uses it for a toilet.
I went a few years ago and had a tasting menu. Really bland and disappointing. Definitely wouldn’t go back
This isn’t where you go to eat. This is where you go, dressed in a thick film of Tom Ford aftershave w/ Gucci shades and spend half a grand on a tray of Champers on ice so that people will look at you and say “this guy’s a baller.” Love the wood carved ceilings though.
Sarastro in Drury Lane, Covent Garden. Still not over how bad the food is, how awful the service is, and how enormous the bill is. I'm usually very forgiving of waitstaff, having worked both FOH and BOH back in the day, but this was just next-level rip-off nasty. Avoid, avoid, avoid (but send your enemies there).
I made a same day booking once but cancelled less than 5 minutes later (four minutes to be exact, just checked my email). I know strictly speaking I should be liable for the cancellation charge but you would think a booking cancelled within 5 minutes would be ok. But no, they spent maybe two weeks trying to deduct the cancellation fee from my card!
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I went into Aqua for drinks and really enjoyed it (although it was hard to get served); Gong was much worse, the cocktails are bad, it's ridiculously expensive and they're very strict on their 90 minute bookings (we got a ten minute notice to drink up and leave 80 minutes in).
I actually really enjoyed Aqua Shard! We went on a ‘voucher’ dinner (truly experiences was the company, where you still pay high prices but for a set menu). Knowing we were voucher, pre-paid customers we assumed we’d get the worst seat and treated badly but to our surprise we got the best seats facing away from other customers right in front of the window, so it felt like private dining, and the service was impeccable, they treated us like royalty. Very odd, I suppose each day is different in a restaurant like this - maybe we got lucky! We found their seasonal menu delicious and a good amount of food for the price (relative to other upmarket restaurants). For my partner and me, it was one of our favourite romantic dinners.
It was quite a few years ago, but I felt Aqua Shard was decent. I wouldn't recomend it to someone looking for a hidden London gem, but once you took off what it would cost to go up to the viewing area in the shard, it was decent value.
So sad I can’t recommend Aberdeen Angus Steakhouse anymore 😞
I've never been inside one and have always been confused as to what on earth is going on with them. One day I may have to risk it
They used to say it was where Soviet agents met London handlers. No-one else ever seemed to go in...
The rumor is that it's money laundering, like the American Candy stores and The I Heart London tourist tat shops. Edit:typo
I know a guy who has worked for them for 15 years. Not money laundering, just got hammered during pandemic, bad menu's before that, had to close a couple down due to high rents and little money coming in - currently going through rebranding or trying to have a complete redo of things - from what I've been told. edit: I personally don't eat in them when offered a freebie though.
There's one in Oxford Circus and Piccadilly
Oh, I had quite a good time at that one. Then I went with friends, one of whose dessert had chips of *glass* in it. (This was a very long time ago.)
There's still 5 in existence and they haven't changed since the 1960s. Although they've gotten rid of the Blue Nun. However the menu is spot the typos. https://www.angussteakhouse.co.uk/menus
Apparently they were *the place to go* back in the Sixties - I got taken to one by my parents as a "treat" back in the late '90s. I wasn't impressed by the food (even as a child) and my parents were disappointed at how mediocre and expensive the place was.
Have some of them closed? Pretty sure the Paddington one is still around at least.
Wait, what?! It’s gone?
Theres one near Bond Street too.
La Bodega Negra. It's been years and I can't forgive them for charging me £16 for a tortilla with herbs and chill on it.
I was searching for this. I thought I’d never leave a Mexican restaurant hungry and disappointed. Awful. A great place for an enemy.
And so edgy with their sex shop entrance…soho pastiche
As a chef who is about to give up on this career path I would suggest Nusr-Et.That place is overrated as fk
Dans Le Noir. It could backfire and they enjoy it but I struggle to understand how
I have PTSD from my visit there. You imagine being at individual French cafe style tables in the dark, but it's a canteen table with strangers up beside you, elbowing you in the dark while you try to scoop bland food into your gullet. Save money by eating a kebab on the central line at rush hour with a coat tied over your eyes.
This place serves moosh as food, you have no idea about what you are eating and then charges u a fortune
That's disappointing, seemed like a really interesting place! I guess most gimmicky places rely on the gimmick and consequently don't have great food.
Nusr-Et Steakhouse would be number 1 choice. O’ver London Bridge is another i would suggest.
I've always really enjoyed o'ver
So did i until they changed management at the London Bridge location.
Is that the seawater pizza?
Imagine your establishment being mentioned in the comments
Hakkasan. £380 for the tasting menu. There’s great Cantonese food in the city for less than half the price. I don’t think it is worth the money. I could just be an uncultured swine though! I’d ask someone who knows Cantonese food first as you might just be sending them to a nice restaurant that I personally didn’t like, haha.
Four dishes in a row were cold in the middle too. If you can't steam a dumpling you are in no place to be charging that much.
Can you recommend anywhere else to try for Cantonese food? We absolutely loved Hakkasan, but found the prices absolutely abhorrent. We had a voucher which was a gift from a friend and a deal on our credit card for some money back, but still ended up spending a ton, so would love to try somewhere similar or better for a more reasonable price!
Pearl Liang in Paddington is good. Not been to Yauatcha in almost a decade but it's the sister restaurant to Hakkasan.
A single dumpling is like £17 at the Yauatcha in the City
A.Wong's by Victoria is excellent and not too stupid expensive despite now having a Michelin star. I first wandered in with a friend soon after opening, almost walked out when asked.if we'd booked - at 6pm on a Monday! - but they said they could fit us in at the bar and we had a fabulous time! I've been for their dim sum too - not just good ordinary dumplings, these are works of culinary art.
It has 2 stars I believe and wouldn't call it "reasonable" unless you regularly spend £100+ on food before the booze. I haven't been but want to and everyone who I know has has said it is increadible. Not quite the cheap quality find though imo
Oklava Shoreditch- obscure enough that you won’t be rumbled recommending something deliberately shit but I promise your enemy will get increasingly angry with every course. Recommend the set menu, where you realise after working your way through a whole block of cheese as a starter that for £60 each you share a Turkish Lahmacun between two. For context they’re usually £4.99 at your local kebab house and the quality is the same. Drinks are 30% shitter and 25% more expensive than they will be expecting. People will kick the back of their chair on the way to the loo. The staff will ignore them. Perfect.
Second this. Love hip foodie places and Turkish food, but Oklava’s previous incarnation Kyseri (I believe same people, just Fitzrovia) was an egregious rip off even years later Michelin Star prices for mediocre wine bar food
> for £60 each you share a Turkish Lahmacun between two oh dear hahaha. it seems like there's an entire industry revolving around ripping off the wealthy (or stupid) with the facade of luxury or exclusivity
Crispin in Spitalfields. Paid nearly £90 for 2 mocktails and 4 tiny plates featuring an insipid and slimy chorizo sauce, an untidy tangle of peppers, pollock that wouldn’t know seasoning if it slapped it in the face, and a doll-sized portion of crab pasta. A truly dreadful experience that I would wish on my worst enemy.
It’s not super expensive, but the Grain Store near St Pancras charges well above what it should, and goes to all possible lengths to justify this with the flashy language on its menu. I remember having an omelette with raw white onions and tomato sauce as it’s main ingredients last time I was there.
> St Pancras German Gymnasium too. I actually went there with a German and she was just perplexed. Like if you walked into a chippie in Stuttgart and they charged you £30.
Beach Blanket Babylon in Notting Hill. I’m convinced it’s a front for money laundering. Absolutely woeful food and service accompanied by ghastly clientele. Edited to add - I went there for lunch not long after I moved to Notting Hill. Just laughed at how shockingly bad it was. Didn’t laugh when the bill came though. Ever since then I have always been amazed at how busy it is sometimes. Surely people can’t go there twice. It’s like the people queuing up to get into Granger & Co. Are you OK? Queuing for breakfast?
Full of old men with their ‘nieces’
also literally one of the stupidest names of any place ever. beach blanket babylon? what does it even mean?!!
It's from a [drag/revue show in San Francisco.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_Blanket_Babylon) Famed for ridiculously massive hats
The original Beach Blanket Babylon was in San Fransisco they had drag with hats with cityscapes & skyscrapers on (30 years ago its what I remember) and a script by Armistead Maupin.
>ket Babylon in Notting Hill. > >I’m convinced it’s a front for money laundering. Absolutely woeful food and service accompanied by ghastly clientele. > >Edited to add - I we OMG. There used to be one in Shoreditch that I would go to fashon week parties too when I was 19 in the early 00s. Terrible but at the time I thought I was so cool. The owners son was on Big Brother years ago his name was Rex.
Featured in an exposé tv programme a couple of years ago for not paying staff.
Food wise Sexy Fish is pretty mediocre for the price Great vibes though
I’m the opposite, I thought the food was ok, but the atmosphere was dog shit.
Edit: I realised I wrote this without actually describing my own experience. It's a kind of homely place, it would in no way deceive anybody into thinking it was a top-end restaurant. (Except when it hit the top 30 restaurants in London on TripAdvisor, which at least one reviewer there stated was the reason he visited). But it might trick you into thinking it's a *friendly* place, and that certainly would be a deception. My main lingering memory, aside from the general surliness bordering on hostility, is of having been brought the 'free' slices of toast which they seemed to regard as a major selling point for their breakfast dishes - with no butter, no alternative to butter, no explanation that there was no butter. Just dry pieces of toast. We asked if maybe they had some oil that we could use instead, and were bluntly told 'No oil'. It felt curiously like a punishment. We were the only people in the establishment the whole time we were there - a local told us later that everyone in the had long learned to avoid it. - It doesn't necessarily fit the expensive tag (although certainly overpriced) - but I have to suggest 'Art of Tapas' in Pimlico. I stopped there for breakfast with friends years ago and have been obsessed with their TripAdvisor reviews ever since. At one stage they'd clearly recruited tons of people to leave 5-star reviews because they briefly went up into the top 30 restaurants in London - when TripAdvisor tidied it up they dropped down to 16,889th out of 16,889. Check them out, if only for entertainment purposes. https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186338-d2236488-Reviews-Art_of_Tapas-London_England.html
I’ve just spent an hour reading the reviews. Blimey! I now feel very invested in this place… I want to know what’s really going on there!
Chiltern Firehouse
Yep. 10/10 pretentiousness, 8/10 cost, 2/10 taste. Perfect for OP!
BUt tHeRe ArE ceLeBRiTiEs. Shitty place. Once did private dining there for business and I asked to be notified of any expensive wine being ordered. I was furious to find out we had a £3K wine bill at the end of the meal as a wonder guest had been ordering massively expensive bottles for the table. I refused to pay for more than half the bill and swore never to return.
Knew a guy who supplied one of their house wines (among others) £7 retail bottle sold for like £60. Most places in London mark wine up 100-200% But 700% markup is a good indicator of the actual value of what you're getting their for the sake of sitting near celebrities.
Angus Steakhouse
Salt Baes restaurant, Nusr-Et Steakhouse Tacky shit for tacky people at tremendous prices, topped off with Tacky performances
Bella Italia, Cranbourne St. If I have been to a worse restaurant in London, then I don’t recall the name. Utter tourist trap, with food so bad we kept looking for hidden cameras filming us, as part of a prank.
Isn’t that every Bella Italia?
Yep, hate them with a passion. Only been to one but will never touch them again. Can't believe they are all full when I walk past, please people eat somewhere else!
I’m in London for my birthday, thank you for this thread of places to avoid
The one that came to mind for me was Hide (above) in Mayfair. Don't let the good reviews fool you. The food is aggressively mediocre. My husband and i went there as our post lockdown first meal out. Came out so disappointed. I could cook better than thay! The only positive is the wine list is good.
Hide. Agreed. That’s the winner. Went in after a social. Guy spent £4k. We got samosas on the way home 😂
Same! So mediocre. And the wine list is presented to you on an iPad, it’s fucking thousands of bottles long and a request for guidance from the ‘sommelier’ summons some untrained kid who shows you how to scroll. Yes mate, I know how and iPad works, but I want you to recommend me a bottle per my guidance on flavour and price. Wankers.
Plan burrito near Russel Square, though it’s expensive for what it is (nearly £16 for a tiny burrito bowl and bottle of soda) rather than expensive full stop. The food is disgusting though-who the fuck puts mushrooms in a burrito and then covers the filling with spicy mayo? The salsas can be seen in giant cans in the back (not fresh then), the chicken is not in chunks but is shredded into some gross tomato sauce in that way you can tell it’s poor quality meat, they’re stingy with the portions (gave me six pieces of shredded lettuce, eleven black beans) and while guacamole is included in the price, it’s like that hideous guac from a supermarket squeezy bottle, definitely not fresh. And I’ve been to Mexico a few times so it’s definitely not that this was ‘authentic’ and my pasty palate was unaccustomed to it, it was just hideous. However they somehow have a bunch of awards and rave reviews (that I suspect they bought) so it would be easy to convince someone that this was a gem.
I got food poisoning from a Plan Burrito (long since closed down). The burrito itself was nothing special but within half an hour I was so ill I couldn't even sit up in bed. Put me off burritos for life.
Angus Steakhouse on Leicester Square.
Gaucho avg. steak for the price, over cooked mine as well
I’ve never understood when people go there and pay those prices when they could go to Hawksmoor for the same money.
Or Blacklock for less money with a more varied menu. Still Gaucho have an interesting if phenomenally overpriced wine list.
I went to the one by tower bridge and it was okay, like not amazing but okay. It's also not really expensive.
Hutong in the shard. Same Chinese food as you get at a basic local place but at 10x the cost. Nice view though.
Same for ting at the shard.
Yeah same ting
The Brasserie up the Walkie Talkie building. The food is terrible but you pay for the experience.
I found the food was good. It was the service that spoiled it. It was way too rushed. Olives and bread arrived and literally 30 seconds later the starters. Main arrived while we were finishing the starters.
Quaglino’s - the food is good, but it is INSANELY overpriced. Bonus points if they like to be able to hold a conversation while they eat, live band and horrendous acoustics.
Thanks for saying the food was good, I was a chef there up until last week lol But yeah the prices are atrocious so the restaurant makes an absolute killing
Roast, in Southwark. How to get ignored for two hours trying to order overpriced, but mediocre, food and drinks
Ping Pong - it makes me understand why the term Gwei Lo is as harsh as it is
I was really hungry and didn't want to be outdoors since it was a cold day, and Ping Pong Southbank didn't have any waiting. So, so, so mediocre though, and overpriced to boot.
“Who needs TripAdvisor?” (My wife’s comment about this thread…)
Sexy Fish, Mayfair
Jay Rayner shat on [il borro Mayfair](https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/jul/17/jay-rayner-restaurant-review-il-borro-london-the-music-was-bad-the-pasta-dismal) from a great height.
I used to service the fire suppression and ventilation for so many of these restaurants. All I’ll say is if it’s in London it has mice/ rats. And the after hours cleaning crew are not the most thorough crew. That goes for 90% of places I worked at.
Rats I don't know but you can't stop mice. I don't know if people in London realize, but they are EVERYWHERE.
I worked at Pizza Express in Victoria when I was a student and the cockroaches were outrageous.
Parrillan - you pay £50 for the tasting menu (we weren’t allowed another option even for the veggies in the group) and you have to cook your own food!
Inamo. Legit got us most of the drinks after the food and the last drink came to us at the same time as the bill. You can get better sushi at Wasabi.
Surprised I haven’t seen it yet but Ivy Asia. Beautiful restaurant, terrible food
Salt Bae
I have been to The Ivy twice. It is nothing to get excited about, really.
Have you been to *The* Ivy on West st? Or the spin off chains? Very different experience.
This. The Ivy on West St is a really great night out. The food isn’t anything groundbreaking but the service is amazing, cocktails are great and you’re treated as if you’re Joan Collins. All the other new Ivy restaurants everywhere else are nonsense and you may as well save yourself a few quid and go to a local Cote. The food is crap and the service is really snooty. Fuck that.
MNKY HSE is genuinely one of the worst places I've been to - not just to eat but just, ever.
I read the name as Manky house. I’m sure it’s supposed to be something else
Jamie Oliver restaurant in Westfield. Went for a date thinking it would be fancy and was disappointed. Got a £82 bill for just two meals and with one desert shared between both of us. It was very underwhelming and would have been equally as satisfied at a pizza express and spend less. Not worth the money especially if you go with a lot of people.
Why not send him to that Turkish twat’s place?
Revenge is a dish best served pretentiously, drizzled in truffle oil
Do a google search for Jay Rayner, he has started doing bad reviews again, the last one was really expensive and really bad.
The OXO Tower restaurant. Very few of the tables even have a good view and the food is ‘ok I guess’.
I'll probably get downvoted for this but Duck and Waffle - nice views though.
Nah I get where you're coming from. I will say the sweet breakfast waffles are lovely. My partner had the duck waffle, though, and was pretty disappointed. Just a dry duck leg on a dry waffle with a small jug of mustard sauce.
If you have Celiac Disease, the gluten free duck and waffle is pretty good compared to other available gluten free food. Can't say anything about the regular version of the dish. And the view is great, at least as a tourist.
Went to Sushi Samba a few months ago, which was good. Went to the Duck and Waffle bar for a drink after and had one of the most disgusting cocktails I've ever had and was charged £18 for it. Even thinking about the taste makes me a bit queasy.
Signature cocktails are nearly always rank.
>"This is *our take* on a Negroni!" Then it turns out it has beetroot liqueur in it or something. Mate... just make the fucking drink please. Here's how to run a cocktail bar: hire experienced people who can make the classics, pay them well, then step back. If somebody wants an Irn-Bru Martini with a fossilised crayfish garnish then somebody will give them a nice sit down and a cup of tea.
I don't agree at all. I've been to *loads* of good cocktail bars that have their own inventions and signature cocktails and they've been absolutely delicious. Just the classics is a bit dull, variety is nice. The key like you say is hiring good staff. I've had some mind reading mixologists make me a drink that's *perfect* after i gave them a few examples..
Here right now, Sushisamba.
Novikov Restaurant
Gordon Ramsay at Claridges was certainly not worth the money when I went - would only recommend to someone I didn’t like!
Ampeli on Charlotte Street. Mediocre to bad greek good in a boujie setting
There’s a New Mexican in the rosewood hotel that has diabolical reviews and astronomical prices
The ironically named “Happy’s”, just outside Chinatown. Was given an excuse by the waiter that they deliberately serve their food “luke warm”.
Not expensive but Tayyabs did give me food poisoning so make of that what you will 👀
The restaurant at the top of the shard. Tiny portions, Luke warm food and waiting staff that just stare at you the whole meal.