london restaurants

anyone been anywhere good lately?

was at quality chop house last weekend, it was mixed, really. great wine, some good dishes, some stuff a bit weird or disappointing. probably would go back but more as a small plate and a drink type place.

also the street kitchen pop-up on shoreditch high street is one of the better ones i've been to.

that sucks to hear, was just going to book in quality chop house for my gf's birthday

Finally going to trullo next week!

Went to NOPI a couple of weeks back. The vegetarian main dish was a bit of a let down but other mains were good, I was told. The small plates really made up for it, as you'd imagine. We were downstair in the store cupboard, good use of space!

i wouldn't say definitely avoid - about 60 per cent of what we got was good. it was just a bit odd, eg my cousin got kid and it came with just... loads of boiled potatoes, which were fairly nice but a bit weird as a side dish. rillettes tasted a bit gone, a friend got those and sent them back. mine was good overall without blowing my mind, i had veal offal for main and quail with morcilla to start. the wine is amazing.

we ate in the bar so it may be diff in the main room.

xposts

on restaurants, has anyone been to beard to tail? am going next week, the menu looks brilliant but the reviews i've seen have been...mixed

― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Friday, April 12, 2013 8:40 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in the event this was teeeerrrrrrible, fyi. not even the the way i ordered saddleback bacon with cockles and they only bothered to tell me they had no cockles that day when they brought the dish to me cockle-free, nor even that i had to ask them twice to bring that dish back to me because we were pushed for time and i decided to have it anyway (they gave it to us free), but mostly because it was the most disgustingly salty meal i've ever had in any restaurant, let alone one costing £15.

otoh this is barely in london but i was there this weekend with the bf and the food was absolutely incredible http://www.swaninndenham.co.uk/

in the event this was teeeerrrrrrible, fyi.

yeah i'd read awful reviews.

At the top end, went to Galvin at Windows, on the top floor of the Park Lane Hilton, last week. The food is fantastic but the view is pretty difficult to beat, even though if you're in a couple one of you has to draw the short straw of facing into the restaurant. That was me, in that case.

i'd been hoping beard to tail would have taken the sundry criticisms on board in the intervening months since the terrible reviews but nope, neither service-wise nor food-wise. you wonder what they're playing at if they can't get the basics right. i guess the cocktails are good

So it was basically just a plate of bacon?

a plate of really salty bacon in whatever the sauce was. i got an extra starter (that wasn't free) of rather average, overly greasy squid to make up for it.

jeez

I had excellent, cheap Vietnamese at Cafe East in Surrey Quays on Friday. Not what you'd expect from an Odeon/Hollywood Bowl car park restaurant at all, and I will be going back.

Surrey Quays = best place in London.

pub in london that can fit approx 20 people, good range of beer, pref central london, not noisy, any tips?

if it can be hired all the better but not essential. pool table would be good.

e.g. pembury would be good if it weren't in hackney

http://www.queensheadlondon.com/

had my 30th here. it's v quiet at weekends, lovely pub, amazing beer selection, and quite nice ploughmans/pies. the guy will reserve tables for you if you email him.

Yeah the Queen's Head is a good one. The room upstairs at the Crown in Clerkenwell can be hired out as well and that's lovely, no pool table though.

fucking hate the pembury

Yeah I've never seen the appeal, it's weirdly devoid of atmosphere.

really horrible family atmosphere.

joking but you get me.

Also there always seem to be like three dudes sitting on their own with laptops and headphones plugged in.

and they dont even have a pool table any more iirc

where do you all go for a beer these days? kinda revolve between palm tree, the camel as it's right beside my flat (and has improved a bit, plus sells redchurch beers), the cock tavern, and occasionally well and bucket on bethnal green road, it's alright really, not amazing.

i always push for the cock tavern but my friends like going to the scolt head :/

I always like the scolt head more than I think I will

there are a lot of terrible ppl there

that is definitely true. I think I always end up happy because a pint is cheaper than it looks like it would charge.

i always push for the cock tavern but my friends like going to the scolt head :/

i hate the scolt.

the palm tree still is the place where i find you're most likely to meet people or make some new friends.

been going to the old coffee house in soho a bit lately. it's fairly divey, tho no more than most soho pubs. it has really nice brodies ale and it's 3.50 a pint.

The Scolt Head is legit one of the worst pubs I've ended up in in London, outside of yr standard West End vertical drinking holes and depressing outer London high street places. Like you can see how in a different part of town it might be good, and it's not like there aren't great little back street pubs elsewhere in the area, but that place just has so many cunts in it.

It's the shape of the pub and everything, it's just a crappy space. It reminds me of being in my local back in Dublin, and not in a good way.

*shuffles back under rock*

I think the Scolt is ace when it's quiet in the afternoon. We used to do our performance reviews there when I worked at the Duke. They were less ace.

I am probably asking the wrong people here but I have a bit of time to kill near Tooting Broadway station this evening while waiting for someone. Is there anywhere that suits a quiet beer with a book in the area? This may be impossible on a Friday night and I'm sort of expecting rampaging Aussies but you never know. It's not a place I know at all.

*shuffles back under rock*

haha sorry for flinging "my opinions" at you.

lol no was joking. Can't deny it's full of cunts.

Normally go to my local wetherspoons in Brockley but if I'm actually properly going for a pint I love the following:

Marquis of Granby in New Cross (really cozy, err 'traditional' pub, full of NX locals and art students. Could happily sit there all night. My housemate did last year. For ten nights in a row. He spent at least £500. Oops)

Stormbird in Camberwell (does crafty type beers, nice and quiet, well laid out, not vastly expensive)

Royal Albert (it's an Antic pub so you know what to expect. Does a great roast as well).

i swear the scolt head used to be perfectly pleasant back in the day when it was guaranteed half-empty. i've avoided it for so long that i'd be prepared to believe it's come full circle - à la the price george, which i found myself in recently and it was actually not rammed and quite nice.

have found myself in the old fountain near old st a lot recently as it's one of the boyfriend's favourite pubs. apparently the ale selection or whatever is good but i don't know anything about that. it's nice enough i guess. feel v lucky to have the elderfield in clapton as my local.

looking forward to being in the spaniards inn on hampstead heath this weekend! love that place.

queen's head is a good shout!! thanks I'll email them and check. reserving a couple of tables should be sufficient

a good thing about the queen's head is he kinda unofficially serves till whenever he wants. when i had my 30th there i asked if he'd let us stay a bit later than it was about 0330 when we left, albeit with the hour having changed that night.

the new burnt enz thing is pretty good - less interesting beers tho and it's more expensive. food is similar to last year even tho it's now lucky chip doing it.

yeah we went there the other night after work, food wasnt quite as good as last time but still pretty enjoyable

Hey Dwight, I drink in the Royal Albert all the time, it's an excellent place, and I tend to find Antic pubs hit and miss generally. I tend to sway back and forth on the Marquis, not bothered to go in there for years. Apparently back in the late 60s/early 70s my parents were in there with Hattie Jacques (!!!) who had been doing something at Goldsmiths during the day, and the night turned into this legendarily enormous session. Apparently she liked a drink.

I was in the Granby on Saturday. There's truly not a pub in the world I'd rather be sat in.

I love the Granby, but I don't get in enough.

Feels like there should be loads of pub like it, but there just aren't.

Comfortable london irish pub, dose of art student. Feel at home.

It's because pubs, especially in areas like New Cross, tend to be increasingly polarized in their clientele. Pubs that attract a genuine cross-section and (importantly) seem to keep everyone pretty happy are a pretty rare thing these days.