Belgo Centraal

Went there last Saturday night, round 9pm, because we didn't book a table, so we wait for at least half and hour for a table for 4. The waiting time was spent watching the chefs in the kitchen which was great fun!

We quickly order and the entrée came within a reasonable time, but then we waited for at least 20 mins for our mains.

The entrée crab soup was good, king prawns was ok, the mussels pots was good (as expected) but the surprises came with the Fish n Chips!! It was very good, the fish is very fresh and the batter is not too oily, a bit too thick, however, it is very tasty!

Service was good, very friendly.

I will go there if I am not in a hurry and not too hungry. Don't go there if you want to have a decent conversation with your friends, because we can hardly hear each other in there.
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Vie
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 5
Monday, July 21, 2008

I booked a table for 10 last week for my boyfriend's birthday and didn't find it as enjoyable as in the past. The service is always so-so - the waiters are either rude or too jokey. I only found out about their no-cake-policy after I went out during my lunch hour to buy a cake then to the restaurant to drop it off. They said that they wouldn't be liable for any problems with the cake, so we were allowed to sing Happy Birthday, but not allowed to cut or eat it. They wouldn't even store it for us. I think they should notify customers on their website or at the door of this.

We thought the Lobster festival was on that week, as advertised on their website, but when we got there, the only lobster dish was the Surf n Turf. Quite a few of us ordered this and the amount of lobster (1/2 a lobster) was tiny, the steaks were all of different cut (mine was too tough, another was too fatty). Even the fries weren't that nice this time - over fried.

I don't think I'd visit again unless I really couldn't decide where to go and to take advantage of their beat the clock offer.
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Maggie - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 5
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

I used to love Belgo's, but it has really suffered for its success. My visit last week was the worst yet. I don't want to waste any more time on this place, so here goes...

- The reception bar displayed 50 different beers, but only actually sold two;

- We had to share a table with 4 tourists, which we only found out when we were seated;

- The staff all wear matching uniforms and headsets, making it feel like some sort of CIA theme park;

- The food was bland, and produced far too quickly for the 'preparation' to have been anything more than taking off the clingfilm;

- The toilets, once quirky, are now run down and shabby;

- Finally, on ordering a final round of drinks, we had to promise the waiter to drink them quickly so he could free up the table.

All in all, they have sacrificed any hope of quality food and good service, and have replaced it with a horrible fast food, theme restaurant - you'd be better off at TGI Fridays, at least they're honest about it!
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Mike
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 4
Thursday, July 10, 2008

Have recently visited Belgo Centraal for a lunch. Mussels/frittes/beer + additional berry beer to try. Standard, no disappointment, no surprises, effective.
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Serge P., Canada
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 7
Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Dinner for two: £32 including drinks and service.

Having made many trips to Belgo in the past, I was as ever very much looking forward to grabbing a quick dinner there with a friend last night. All through the day my mouth watered at the prospect of its fine range of Belgian fruit beers, succulent muscles and frites done just so - ever so slightly crispy but not so hard that they ping off all over the place when you skewer them with your fork. Good, too, the service - friendly, matey and efficient.

Housed in a former warehouse off Neal Street, Covent Garden, you enter Belgo from bright outside sunshine into a dark, but not oppressive, futuristic lobby area with a small bar for those frequent evenings when the queues get long and thirst overpowering.

The front-of-house person sends you down a pleasingly industrial staircase into the restaurant-proper, which is a large, low-ceilinged cellar containing rows of long tables and benches – this is communal eating. Adorning the walls are murals depicting classic Belgian beer posters, and waiters apparently dressed as Trappist monks stalk the aisles.

On my first visit to the restaurant I must confess that I was completely confounded by the lavatories, which are ridiculously – wonderfully – space age. It was like having a whiz on a UFO.

I am not ashamed to say that I love Belgo.

So it was with sadness that as I left the restaurant after dinner, I forced myself to admit that I had in fact had a pretty shoddy dining experience.

Maybe it was too early - we arrived at about 6pm, straight from work. Maybe they were having some sort of equipment problem - the sink in the toilets was out of order, as was the lift. Maybe there was some sort of staff shortage - though there seemed plenty to me. Whatever it was, there was definitely something wrong at Belgo last night.

To the food. I opted for the poulet aux champignons, which comes with a serving of frites. Apart from the fact that this dish could really do with some other vegetables - mange tout, broccoli, anything to liven up the plate a bit - there were hardly any mushrooms on there at all! Neither was the chicken cooked all that well; I think a few more minutes would have made it a much more enjoyable meal. Frites were, much to my horror, bordering on the soggy side. Absolutely nothing was up to Belgo's normal decent standard.

My friend had the wild boar sausages and mash, something which I have had before and which has always been wonderful. Not so tonight! As with my chicken, the sausages could have benefited from seeing the inside of an oven for a shade longer. The gravy was lukewarm and the chef had been stingy with the berry jus, although the mash was excellent - soft and creamy as good mash should be.

The service also seemed, like the toilets, to be malfunctioning. Waiters hurried us to our seats, hurried to take our orders, hurried to clear the table and hurried to try to hurry us out - even though the restaurant was not that busy. If you hurry, you make mistakes - so it transpired when I was brought the wrong type of raspberry beer. 'Big deal' you might say. Well, these things matter to customers, especially regulars like myself.

Of course large restaurants like Belgo can't get everything right all of the time. Of course things will go wrong occasionally, and of course I will give them the benefit of the doubt and will return there many more times. Usually it's great quality and great value, but even the measly £32 we paid for last night's meal was far too much for such a poor show.
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Nicholas J. Rogers
Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 8
Tuesday, June 03, 2008

This is running a quite good offer of £6.50 lunch with half kilo (they say half kilo) mussels and chips -or a few other options, with accompanying glass of wine, or beer or soft drink, and a loyalty card - lunch there four times and the fifth is free.

But beware - the rye bread isn't, and they dont tell you till the bill comes.

So today was £9 - £8 lunch and £1 (12.5%) service.

A bread free lunch was £7.13 inc service, and on that basis, Belgo is good value.

But for £9? A bit steep...
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williams
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 7
Thursday, May 15, 2008

Booked a private table for a birthday party, since it was a Monday night we did not have any issues with getting seated quickly. However, we had to flag down our waiter to order any food or drinks and this became rather tiring. The service was very slow and it took 3 hours to finish the meal. The food was okay but nothing great. They do have a good choice of speciality beers though. I would not go back here.
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Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 3
Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Great restaurant concept for mussel-lovers. The open kitchen you can see from the street-level is very inviting. The staff is unpretentious and friendly, the mussel-pot (1kg) good for a real meal. Beautiful beer selection.

Fairly prices and WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get). The place is just a bit noisy (the batteries of my hearing-aid went down).

Will definitely turn back again
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Peter R. Geiser
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 9
Friday, April 18, 2008

I contacted Belgo Centraal early in the week to make a reservation for 18-20 people for a birthday dinner. I was advised that they could only do a set menu for a large group, but thought this was fair enough.

However, they only advised me the day before that the only booking they had available was 9:30pm, which had not been a problem when I'd initially called. This was a bit late for dinner, especially as we had to meet some friends who were only coming for drinks afterwards.

Luckily I managed to get a table and a reserved area for both dinner and drinks at Tiger Tiger.

I am still keen to get to Belgo for dinner at some stage, but would not recommend planning a special event there.
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Jacinda
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Thursday, April 03, 2008

I took my out-of -town work mates to Belgos Centraal last night, none of them had been before and they were all suitably impressed, this was the 5th time I have been because the food is always delicious and I wasn't dissapointed last night, I whole heartedly recommend the thai-green mussels to start and a basket of bread and butter to mob up thai-green soup. 2 of us ordered these but our whole party joined us with the bread to help eat the soup because it was sooo delicious.

Belgo always seems to be fully booked when trying to book a table so book early if you want to be in the main restaurant, failing that I have never been turned away before as they have a whole dining area reserved for walk-ins.

The only 'slight' downside is that unless there is about 8 of you, you will almost definatly be sharing a table with other diners, this is not a problem for me but the couple that were sat at the end of our party of 6 were really not impressed as they made jibes about our conversation and took a complete dislike to one of our friends who was not offensive but is just a loud character (the restaurant was full to briming you had to shout to be heard!) The waiters have always been friendly with a sense of humour and the beers are extensive and delicious.

I whole-heartedly recommend this restaurant, if you like mussels and big flavours you love it, but if mussels aren't you thing there is many other choices from fish to steak to duck all at very reasonable prices.

Bon Appetit x
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Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 10
Friday, March 21, 2008