The Oratory

In my humble opinion, The Oratory is one of the best restaurant's in London! I have been there many times now.

The menu is fantastic: especially the goats cheese and sun dried tomato stuffed breast of chicken, served with the most amazing green beans ever and a delicious fresh tomato salsa and buttered mash. World class and at an amazing price.

And the burger? Unbelievable. THE BEST BURGER I HAVE EVER HAD! Beautifully made and cooked to (medium rare) perfection, it melts in the mouth. Order it with blue cheese and it comes with delicious yet delicate deepfried onions on top (no bun lid - who needs one, I've got a knife and fork and don't need the extra carbs!) and chips. My friend had the steak, which was great, but he never got over the one forkful of burger, dijon, onions and chips that I made him try!

And the hot chocolate sauce on any pudding is, again, World class!

Service? Great..friendly, funny actors and actresses make it a jovial and fun place to be. The icing on the cake? The wine list. They're a Brinkleys (wine importers) restaurant and they have the most amazing wine list at ridiculously good pices (ie Bottle of Pouilly Fumee at £13. Come On!).

But, alas, it is closing after this Saturday 926th April 2008), apparently due to a problem with the landlord. Well, it is South Ken after all!

It will be missed by all my friends and mostly, by myself.

The Oratory is dead. Long live The Oratory!
Comment on this reader review

Alex Howie
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Friday, April 25, 2008

The Oratory has been my local for years and for well-priced steak sandwiches, lamb burgers, fishcakes etc cannot be beaten! Its has no pretensions to great cuisine so my advice would be to keep the food simple and have a bottle of their delicious sancerre or fleurie and join us poshies eating out in Knightsbrige for £20 a head in front of the roaring fire in winter or outside on the pavement in summer. The waiters are handsome too!
Comment on this reader review

Julia
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Thursday, March 20, 2008

what a superb Restaurant. We were taken there after the Tosca show and were pleasantly suprised by the beautiful bohemian decor. Loved the atmosphere, very small and cosy place.

Food was excellent and the Lamb burger is the best I've tasted ever.

Staff are a bit slow and don't seem to grasp the basics of waitressing. When you don't have a starter in or there is no bread in the house, offer your clients something else, don't come with the main meal and then say that you've just got some bread in, would you like it still! Honestly! The basics were sadly lacking but the friendly waitress at the end of our meal who brought the coffee(too die for-the coffee's ,I mean) made it all worth while.

Definitely will go back there again but you have to book! It's a tiny place so not many tables.
Comment on this reader review

Irene
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 5
Thursday, March 13, 2008

Oh, my. The Oratory certainly looks the part, but I will never be returning, as it does not act the part. The interior is decorated in a kind of posh-chic manner, with nice wooden touches and pleasant decor all around. The menu is simple, but interesting... if you could get what you ordered. The service is ridiculously bad. Don't expect to get exactly what you ordered, nor in any sort of reasonable time-frame (and we were there for a leisurely 2 hour lunch). We were pushed for time due to no less than 5 requests for things that just never showed up, despite talking to three different wait staff. We were polite, they were polite, just... nothing happened. I have to agree with the handful of previous reviews: the Oratory is a bad place to go.
Comment on this reader review

Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 4
Sunday, February 10, 2008

The Oratory has such potential but fails on so many levels. The greeting at the door is one to make you want to walk straight out. As lover of a good piece of lamb I order the rack and what a disappointment, more fat that a piece of mutton and less flavour than a piece of celery! Not one member of the staff had any idea of customer service and at no time did I feel they cared for their diners' well being. I am still shocked that I allowed the 10% gratuity to remain on the bill! One establishment to avoid in future at all costs.
Comment on this reader review

Jonathan
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 2
Sunday, March 11, 2007

This is a great place to go if you want an informal meal with friends with simple food and fantastic wine. When I went with my wife the food was simple but well cooked and the service okay at best. But what really sets this place apart is the amazing wine list at prices you would expect to pay at in a supermarket. A nice bottle of wine always makes the meal much better and here they have a superb list.

There are so many places in London where you can pay for great food but the meal is ruined by a cheap bottle of £5 plonk being sold on at £30-40.

Here I had the Hamilton Russell Pinot noir at a bargain price of £28 with steak and fries. Not cutting edge stuff, but simple stuff done well.

I will certainly go back, and will give their other restaurants a try.
Comment on this reader review

Paul Jaines
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 9
Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Overpriced mediocre food with incredibly bad service. The moody waitress didn't even look at us when we said thank you on our way out.
View/Add comments (1)

Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 1
Friday, December 15, 2006

I went here with my boyfriend on a Sunday lunch time - we stumbled upon it on our way to the V&A. Looked great and had a good, well-priced menu but, the upshot is, we had our starter then waited approx 40 mins for our main. We had to ask twice where it was and never received an explanation of what went wrong. They offered us drinks on the house but we didn't take them - just carried on with the meal. My boyfriend's steak sandwich looked good but my sausages were a little on the dry side and the gravy was slightly congealed. Basically looked like it had been sitting in the kitchen for a while which, obviously, is slightly ironic due to our wait time. When it came to paying, we chose not to leave a tip but the waiter clearly couldn't care less if we came back or not, which really did it for me. I understand things go wrong, but all that's needed is good communication and a decent apology. Unfortunately, we got neither and won't be going back. Not that the staff will mind too much....
Comment on this reader review

LT - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 7
Thursday, November 16, 2006

This may not be the best food in town but it certainly is good value for money. The wine is just so reasonably priced, £15 for a bottle of fleurie. The menu has all the usual suspects; calamari, goats cheese bruchetta, fish cakes. I would avoid the chicken ceasar though, the texture of the bird is more intensively reared than free range. Still the staff are frindly and attractive. Fellow customers amusing { alot of old posh getting pissed}. This is a great place for a girls night out. Has to has the longest walk ever to the ladies though, something you have to experience for yourself.
Comment on this reader review

cartoon
Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 10
Thursday, August 03, 2006

Best restaurant I've been to in London! This is my fourth trip to London from NYC and I have eaten at some of the best restaurants when visiting and this is by far the best restaruant I have tried. So much was said about the wine list at this restaurant and although good...I think the food is the reason to visit. I was equally as surprised when the bill came and the price of the meal was so reasonable.
Comment on this reader review

Peter B
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 9
Tuesday, June 27, 2006