The Cuban

Ate at "The Cuban" the other week and was very disapointed. Tucked away on St. John's hill with a good view of all the local pimp-mobiles going past blasting out white noise, it is a cocktail bar cum restaurant with a small and rather plain eating area situated next to the toilets.

The menu consisted of but a small rendition of what was advertised by the group on their website - I'm sure they have a small caveat buried in there somewhere, but I found this rather dishonest. The reason for the part-Menu? Apparently they have a small kitchen.

The cocktails, even at happy hour were £5 each - and that was about 20-30% off the normal price!. The measures of spirit were ok, but the drinks were nothing outstanding in the slightest. We had tapas and two mains to follow, lamb and red snapper. Neither was worth what we paid. Even the presentation was passionless.

By this point, we were so underwhelmed that we didn't bother ordering dessert and left at the earliest opportunity, leaving the almost empty restaurant at peak mealtime to a couple of would be yuppies.

This is a very good lesson regarding the fact that the majority of restaurant chains are devoid of excellence and designed to extract as much money as possible for as little in the way of return as they can possibly get away with.

Do your research and don't waste your money here.
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Dan
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Monday, August 13, 2007

I went to the Cuban in Clapham with my friend last night, the place itself is nice, clean (apart from the toilets) and good decor but there is only 1 word that describes the service and the food....DREADFUL!

I ordered the Red Snapper for my main, when it arrived it was chewy, tough to cut and clearly something wrong with it. Without an apology the waiter took my plate away and came back 5 mins later asking what I want (quite rudely), so after requesting to see the menu again I went for the cheese burger thinking it'll be a quick simply dish, 45 mins later it finally arrived by now my friend had finished her food a long time before. The meat in the burger must have been off because it had a terrible smell and taste. The manager recognised that the fish and the burger wasn't right and offered to remove both dishes from our bill. The manager was the only one with good customer service skills.

The other thing I will add is the menu in the restaurant has less than half the dishes advertised online.

I will not be returning or recommending to anyone. Stay away.
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natalie
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Friday, June 29, 2007

me and my friends were passing The Cuban, it looked a bit small from the outside but we thought we'd go and check it out.

once inside we loved it, the atmosphere was great really lively and couldnt believe how different it looked once inside,theres a restauarnt, a bar and even a lounge.

The cocktails were great and didnt take too long to get served. we had some tapas which was very tasty especially the prawns. i would definatley recommend this place and i cant wait to try out the other cuban bars in London.
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Pedro
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Tuesday, February 06, 2007