Phoenix Palace

3-5 Glentworth Street, Marylebone, London, NW1 5PG - View on a map
Telephone: 020 7486 3515

Overall 8.5
Food 8.0
Service 8.5
Atmosphere 9.5
Value 8.0
Based on 2 reviews

your comments review this restaurant and win a bottle of champagne

I went to Phoenix Palace on a Sunday for lunch. The place was packed out, so a good sign.

I have been there 4 or 5 times over the past 6 or so years, although not in recent years. And on each of the occasions, I remember the food being good.

However, when I looked at the menu (January 2011), I was shocked by the high prices. Perhaps, regulars at this restaurant can remind me if they have increased prices??.

For instance for a main seafood dish, the cheapest was £14.90, with average being £25-£30 per dish. And the starters were all expensive. £5 for 4 small spring rolls, which was pretty ordinary. The soup was £5 which tasted like too much vinegar in it.

We ordered a number of dishes and they were all pretty ordinary, nothing stood out as being finger licking good, or amazing that I would want to come back or even to justify the higher prices. I felt ripped off, because if a restaurant has high prices, then the dishes better be good and memorable, but they dishes wrere just ordinary.

Also, the service needs to match their prices, for instance they did not take away the plates in which we had our starters. Is it too much to ask for fresh places between courses? When the waitress, brought our main course, the serving spoon fell out of the dish and onto the table. As far as I was concerned the spoon was now soiled, but instead of brining a new spoon, she just the same spoon back into the dish. This was poor etiquette / manners.

If a restaurant is charging high prices, when you should reasonably expect cloth napkins, but instead they had "small" paper tissues. Why not provide full sized paper tissues?. I had to ask my partner if she had a tissue in her bag. A little bigger size tissue would help!

We ended up paying £25 per head |(without desserts or drinks), which I felt was a rip-off for the "average" meal we had.

Leaving on a slight positive note, I did like the choice offered in the menu.
Comment on this reader review

RK
7 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 4
Monday, January 24, 2011

Very busy, had to queue for more than half an hour on a Saturday for a table. Food, nothing special, just okay.
Comment on this reader review

Carina - View all reviews by this user
7 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 7
Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Read Current Reviews

what the bloggers say

Gourmet Chick - 8/10

Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - The decoration hails from the school of Chinese bling with huge gold dragons arching their backs menacingly next to red carved wooden chairs and heavy lacquered screens. Just my type of place...Our selection of tasty morsels started with the har gao prawn dumplings whose pliant, thin skin was stretched over plump, juicy prawns. The Shanghai pork dumplings erred on the stodgy side but off the specials list, the chicken and ginger dumpling was a revelation. Subtly flavoured with a delicate, translucent skin the dumplings were adorned with two peas making the them look a little like the dim sum version of ET.

Read full review

Will Eat For Money

Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - Beef ball dumpling. Minced beef mixed with mushed peas. Well seasoned beef and fortunately the taste of peas didn't come through too strongly. A very decent meatball. Fried dough cheung fun. Another one I hadn't come across before, but really liked. The noodle roll itself was perfectly dense, while the fried dough filling was nicely crispy. Wonderful when dipped in to the sweet soy sauce...Some items at Phoenix Palace were more successful than others, such as the har gau, and the overall quality was good. It's a good option for a dim sum lunch on the weekend, though beware of queuing times.

Read full review

Pig Pig's Corner

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 - Phoenix Palace is located centrally just off Marylebone Road and just a couple of minutes away from Baker Street tube station. The store front merely hints at the decor inside, filled with shiny lacquered wood and traditional Chinese decorations and engravings looking very much the epitome of the old school opulent Chinese restaurant...We managed to sample a wide range of dishes, and overall they were mostly average to good quality overall although there were a couple I strongly disagreed with. However, I think that for nearly the same price, Pearl Liang has the better quality for nearly all the dishes.

Read full review