Portrait Restaurant & Bar

Had lunch here yesterday and had no complaints except that it's a bit on the noisy side, not because of unusually loud people but possible because of the design of the room. It's a small place but I got a Saturday lunch reservation the same morning without a problem and most tables have great views right by the window. The food was good and the service was perfectly competent. Not a cheap place but the two courses for £20 or three for £25 was good value given the location and the view. Would certainly go back.
Comment on this reader review

Joe
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 8
Sunday, January 06, 2008

Fantastic Views. Not a very warm environment - Black and White. The food was very disappointing - poor presentation, poor quality and poor taste. Our pork belly mains arrived as a cold, perfect square piece of pork , meat had a grey look to it with a shiny brown glazed top. The standalone piece of crackling, again a cold perfect square, had an inch of fat beneath a grey coloured skin - not even browned. This all sat on top of BBQ beans. Starters were ok. 1 very rare chicken liver on toast. 1 goat cheese on toast with sweetened onions. Will return for the view, a drink and bar snack. p.s. pour your own wine unless you like the entire bottle poured into your glasses (3) to the top!
Comment on this reader review

L
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 3
Sunday, August 19, 2007

The views from the restaurant atop the Portrait Gallery are wonderful, especially if you can get a table next to the window near the front. I recommend asking for this when you book. Overall, the food is very good, service very attentive. However, I strongly advise everyone to avoid the pepper steak, which at £28 has to be one of the most over priced food items in all of London. I've had it twice - the first time, was not bad, but when I had it last night it was well done when I'd asked for it medium rare, it was a thin and pretty ropey piece of meat, and had so little flavour the pepper and salt coating dominated everything. The staff were quite good and would have swapped but for the fact we were in a bit of a hurry, and did offer a free dessert. But for £28 I expected something wonderful, what I got wasn't worth a fiver. The scores below on food and value for money are therefore lowered because of the steak.
Comment on this reader review

Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 4
Friday, August 10, 2007

I notice that the previous reviews are all quite old which may account the fact that my partner, our friend and I had a wonderful dinner at Portrait on a recent Friday night.

We ate in the restaurant from the a la carte menu. The service was efficient and very friendly but not intrusive, and the view a great bonus.

The menu was wide ranging but all three of us plumped for the calf's liver for our menu course and all greatly enjoyed it. The only downer was my cheese and leek tart started which could not quite decide if it was hot or cold.

I would certainly go again and consider Portrait to be quite a find!
Comment on this reader review

Keith Moffitt
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 7
Sunday, May 13, 2007

It did not bode well. We walked in on an argument between a customer and a member of staff and after we had been seated things started to go wrong. Our spritzers arrived without any spritz, my father's beer did not arrive at all and attracting the attention of the many available waitors was a long, slow, painful process. This was perhaps meant to serve as a practice run for the next part of the ordeal. Although we had been expecting a larger, more interesting menu we had settled for one pie and two tarts. Though we had arrived very early in the day, when there were few customers, we had a forty minute wait for food which was cold. The ham and roasted vegetable tart could also have been more accurately described as ham and spinich quiche. We then slowly begun to realise that there seemed to be a two different types of service and that we had been ushered straight into the cafe and had not been offered the restaurant menu which we would have preferred. Having had a thoroughly disappointing and miserable time, we decided to complain: one of the blinkered waiters whose attention no-one ever seemed able to attract (we were not the only table who suffered) dealt with the situation by laughing, the more senior waiter and the manager seemed unconcerned that we had not been offered the choice of eating in the restaurant, had waited forty minutes for cold food or that the service had been bordering on the edge of rudeness.

My advice: have a large breakfast and save your money for the exhibitions.
Comment on this reader review

Isobel
Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 5
Thursday, November 02, 2006

This place is a real find! I am getting to the stage where you expect a lot from places and quite often they fail to deliver. But a museum "cafe" didnt have much to live up to. It has fantastic views over Trafalgar Square and down to the Eye, surprisingly good range and high quality cocktails and good bar bites. Not "cool" but I will defnitely be returning. Didn't eat but the food was really really well presented. Even if you're not interested in portraits it would be an interesting place to start an evening of fun!
Comment on this reader review

Lucy - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 8
Thursday, February 16, 2006

Very fine location, with a superb view, which is good, as there is not too much food to see on your plate. Emphasis is on appearance of the food, which is excellent, rather than quantity - not suitable for someone who is very hungry! Food quality is satisfactory.
Comment on this reader review

Thursday, October 20, 2005