Dean Street Townhouse

Just wanted to re-iterate several comments made by previous reviewers

On the plus side, the idea is a good one....the building has been carefully restored and I found the decor and ambience very pleasant ...although the tables have been jammed together making things a bit uncomfortable at busier times and almost impossible to have a private conversation...

The menu reads quite well...nothing majorly exciting or off the wall...but I was looking forward to my starter.....sadly the quantity and quality of this were not up to scratch.....almost looks like slightly upmarket pub grub but with Soho price tags...and the crab in the crab salad could only be located with an electron microscope!!

What really lets the place down is the service.....more cheap Eastern European labour.....waiters struggling to keep up with orders/ distribute menus....had no real knowledge when asked about wines....had problems understanding English even when questions repeated.....

Shame...as this place could be really great...but its another sad case of style over substance and trying to cut corners/squeeze money out of the customer

I would probably go back for a drink....but not to eat!
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Matt
4 Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 4
Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Had dinner for two with a friend on a Monday evening. The restaurant itself has appealing decor, although the tables near the bar were a little noisy if you wanted an intimate conversation (which we didn't).

I would describe the overall dining experience as adequate but under-whelming and probably lower than what I had expected. I had the spinach & goat's cheese pie as starter, which was incredibly bland (although I guess that's what I deserve for picking such a starter), while my friend's bisque was well received. For my main course I had the sea bass, which was reasonably tasty and adequately presented. The vegetables and mash potatoes (for which I had to pay extra) weren't great - the mash was incredibly dry. We decided to skip dessert as a result of our under-whelming main courses.

Services was ok - nothing to recommend it beyond basic London polite/competent. Our meal, including drinks, came to about £90, so it wasn't a complete rip-off but that was more than enough to pay for mediocrity. I don't plan to rush back.
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JM
6 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 5
Tuesday, August 03, 2010

It's probably more than 20 years since i have been and eaten somewhere so up itself. At lunch today it was heaving with poor sad souls who clearly need to be needed. I had booked a table 3 weeks ago and when I called to book I had asked for a table at 12.30-12.45, the French woman on the phone, so full of hauteur it wasnt true, offered me noon or 1.30. Finally after much negotiation and me saying for goodness sake its three weeks away you cant be full offered me 12.45 (original request). I should have cancelled then and there as this experience had left me with a sense of foreboding. Today on arrival, my guest already there had been seated in Siberia (aka side room adjacent to main room) which was like a yuppies creche so full was it of screeching children belonging to residents of the hotel rooms above. Do you need a password on booking to be given a seat in the main dining room? They clearly even three weeks advance of booking try and keep the 12.30-1.30 slot for their chums. But here is the thing that sums up the whole place (and I could indeed write an essay on this pretentious gaff) I asked the waitress if they had a sommelier. Is that red or white she said? I repeated the question slowly since her English was very poor and i thought she might have misheard, to which she then said did i want a sweet or dry white wine? In god's name what poor excuse of a joke is this place? It's a club for Soho ingratiates. As someone who eats out regularly for both professional reasons and for pleasure and count a number of leading chefs as friends I dont think I have ever come across such a shambolic mess. Salt beef was as tough as old boots.
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Anne Dolamore - View all reviews by this user
2 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 2
Thursday, July 15, 2010

I wanted to like DST, I really did, but one phrase keeps coming back to me: 'this is a bad restaurant.' Anyone who has spent much time in NYC will know what it is trying to be, a McNally buzzing, fun place. It fails. It has hype and attempts the whole velvet rope thing hence booking mid evening dining times is not easy even though when we went it was 80% full. Front of house were warm enough. Ambience was summed up by my companion as 'slightly, only slightly. upmarket Cafe Rouge.' The menu promised solid comfort/bistro food. The haddock souffle was lifeless and the beetroot soup utterly bland apart from some mediocre horseradish. The chicken breast was ok and the steak passable (think Chez Gerrard not Hawksmoor) but the sides were dreadful - carrots that were so overcooked they were actually dry and mash that was a salty flump not a 'eat my on my own' delight. Bread: hmm. a bland square roll for the table scored 3 times but not cut. With a love or a close friend fine, but do you really want to have to hand tear off chunks from a shared loaf??? Charmless staff, exactly three minutes between starters and main, 25 minutes for wine to arrive (teased by the empty glasses after 10) and red that fell into the room not cellar temperature trap. I could go on but no matter: there will always be some people who think a leather booth for 10 and deliberately anti Michelin food are awesome and worth getting excited/blinded about. Both good ideas but when so poorly executed as a concept when there are shining examples pretty much globally (any one of Quo Vadis, Galvin, Ceconni or even Caprice within half a mile of DST even) you do wonder how seduced by the Soho House branding everyone else is.
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Kevin
2 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 2
Thursday, July 08, 2010

Recently visited for sunday lunch. First impressions were good. It's a great space, stylishly decorated with a long, high bar and loads of dining tables.

Our orders were taken pretty promptly, but that's where the good service ended. We either had 3 different waiters visit us in under a minute, or we were ignored while they had a good gossip at the till. Very frustrating.

Food was very nice, but unremarkable and hideously expensive for what it was. Roast chicken at £22! High Road House in Chiswick (also part of the Soho house group) is a much more satisfying place to have a lunch date.

Will go back for late night drinks, but probably won't eat there again.
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6 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 3
Monday, March 22, 2010

Couldn't resist the enthusiasm of the Guardian review, and we wanted to go somewhere with a buzz after the theatre. So had a late-ish table last Friday. The decor is supercool - very private club feel, bit like the Soho House (obviously), Hospital and mainly because it's about 3 doors up, and built at the same time, Blacks.

Service was mainly excellent, although they were very busy. Lots of wannabees, but what else should I have expected? My starter of twice-baked haddock souffle was perfect, although my wife's pumpkin soup was nice, but not the best I've tasted. My main of salt beef was certainly interesting. I'm sure it's authentic, and was quite nice, but wouldn't order again. More concept food than comfort. The lady had a veggie tart thing, which was apparently very good, and some roast parsnips on the side (I tried one,and it was underdone and chewy). But on the whole it was all very well done. and the wine, which came by the carafe was also reasonable value, considering the usual mark-up in places like this.

I'll go back (if it doesn't fill up with fashionable young things making it impossible for me to ever book a table on a Friday night with such ease again), and next time may try the mince and potatoes. Any chance of a half-decent pinot noir by the carafe though?
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CSB, London
8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 7
Thursday, March 11, 2010

We had a very early dinner and the place was packed. I think my main problem with the restaurant is the huge very-busy bar that rounds the whole length of the restaurant. Too many people drinking just 24/36 inches away from tables where people were eating moderately expensive food.

You don't want drinkers within fingertip reach while you relax and enjoy your dinner. Well, I don't anyway.

The ceilings are low so with all the drinkers/dinners the place was very noisy, but it was Friday evening, so maybe it's quieter other times.

The food was perfectly good. We shared the roast chicken (I think a lot of couples share the roast chicken) - it was all perfectly cooked and the gravy was monumentally good. Stuff gravy-dreams are made of. Could've done with more stuffing, but that's such a petty gripe.

The trifle was wonderful. My coffee arrived semi-cold. Service was very good apart from that though.

No idea if we'll go again.
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J. Ickenham
7 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 6
Saturday, February 06, 2010

The moment I walked through the door and was greeted by their ultra officious front of house I knew things were going to get off to a bad start. Unfortunately I had arrived half an hour late, and the front of house felt the need to remind me of this “We thought you weren’t coming, but at least you’re here now” (despite the fact they had telephoned me a few hours earlier to confirm my reservation), the need to reprimand me that I was late felt as if they had forgotten that I was the customer.

The first table I was shown to was in what I suppose is best described as a sitting room, an open coal fire was a nice touch. We went to sit down, and the chairs and banquette seating were so low that I would have had to have been a member of Cirque Du Soleil’s troupe to stand half a chance of being anywhere remotely close to the table. Low seating is perfect for a bar or for a tea service – which I suppose they offer - when one can sit more languidly, but not for dinner. Nonetheless, people were sat perfectly contentedly on these child-height chairs. We were shown to another table, this time where the seating-height was designed for fully grown adults. If the seating had been my only gripe I would have been happy, but of course it wasn’t.

The decor itself is, to my eyes at least, very themepark. It’s not like say The Connaught which has lots of dark wood everywhere simply because it’s been there ever since it was established, it has dark wood simply by virtue of a brief given to an interior designer to make it look like it’s always been there when in fact it sprang up four months ago. When/if The Savoy reopens, regardless of what the interior designers have done to it, at least it has a history, however deeply it may find itself buried under the latest interior trends. The moment I walked in, I commented that it reminded me of Langans (which sadly has seen far better days), the whole dark wood effect coupled with modern art coupled with its trying achingly hard to be oh so cool for the Soho House set gives it a Debbie Does Dickens feel.

The menu is relatively short and the dishes themselves simple which usually results in a very satisfying meal if the kitchen can deliver on quality and fundamental skills. I didn’t like the fact that the vegetarian menu isn’t incorporated into the main menu, I am not a vegetarian, but none of the non-vegetarian first courses appealed to me, I had to ask two waiters before said menu was produced. By the time we’d finally ordered we must have been in the restaurant for a good forty-five minutes. The starters arrived, wild mushrooms on toast for myself and a macaroni cheese for my girlfriend. The macaroni cheese was acceptable, nothing more than that. The pasta was slightly overcooked, I suspect they hadn’t used something like De Cecco and the sauce a little bland, but macaroni cheese is nursery food, so I suppose that’s fine. The wild mushrooms on toast looked promising, a good variety of mushrooms, and lots of fresh parsley, however, they were woefully under seasoned, if I’d have closed my eyes I really wouldn’t have known they were mushrooms, more like textures of water. I am quite amazed they managed to turn such wonderfully fresh produce into something so bland. On the positive side, the toast which had been fried somewhere along the line was crisp.

My girlfriend is currently going through a “vegetarian, but I’ll eat fish” phase which - she is more than well aware – I see as the very worst sort of vegetarian, not committed enough to abandon meat entirely, but they feel the need to make a token gesture, a pretence at a herbivorous lifestyle. Of course she had fish, fish and chips to be precise, and whilst I would have loved to have shared the roast chicken for two, I decided not to be a glutton by devouring it solo. A steak is far too boring a choice, unless one is at a restaurant such as Gaucho I don’t really see the point in ordering a steak, satisfying it is, but it’s not as if it is ever going to be memorable. Uninspired, I had ordered a main course sized portion of the macaroni cheese (if I’d have chosen the main courses after I’d tasted my girlfriend’s starter I’d probably have made a different choice). Compared to the first course version, I had genuinely expected it to have something more than sheer quantity alone, but it didn’t. Some peeled and cooked tomatoes atop, or just something else to cut through the creamy richness, but there was nothing, not even much of that crisp, crunchy top, that for me makes the macaroni cheese something other than pasta in a cream sauce. As an accompaniment we’d ordered what was described as “sprouts and sprout tops”, it was so refreshing to see these on a menu that has nothing to do with the festive season. Another disappointment, for £3.75 we received seven sprouts and four sections of “sprout tops”, for 50p per sprout (given that one can buy an entire stem of organic ones for about half that price) they were surely going to be cooked to perfection. Were they? The chef hadn’t given a moment’s thought that the smaller sprouts would require less cooking than the larger ones, as a result some were overdone and others just about warm through, other than being ill-timed, they were swimming in butter and as an afterthought the chef had thrown some salt at them, leading to a grainy texture in one’s mouth. My girlfriend’s fish arrived perched on its side in such a position to give the impression it had back-flipped into the deep fat fryer, it gave an entirely unnecessary, far too dramatic presentation to what is – and should always be – a basic dish; to coin Nicky Haslam’s phrase, it was “common”. The “marrowfat peas” were in fact minted mushy peas, but minted so much so their flavour was akin to Colgate, the chips were crisp, but over-seasoned. The fish, as my girlfriend put it was “okay, nothing special”, and the batter a little greasy.

As they say, bad things come in threes we decided to skip pudding. If we’d have gone for dinner in a chain-run pub, which is bound to feature many of the dishes that feature on Dean Street Townhouse’s menu, I am sure we would not have given the evening’s meal so much as a moment’s reflection, but given it is a much praised, and much hyped restaurant we went in there with our expectations high. As an afterword, I had complained to the waiter about the mushrooms, yet they still appeared on my bill. I queried this, and saw the waiter conversing with another one, he returned and protested that I had eaten them rather than send them back. I was shocked at his reaction, indeed I had eaten it because it was not dangerously inedible, it was just bland, and also because I wasn’t in the mood to spend an evening returning dish after dish to the kitchen so my girlfriend would be eating at alternate times to myself. I had gone there with the expectation of well cooked, classic English dishes, along the lines of The Ivy, but I left feeling that the restaurant much like its decor is pretending to be something that it is not.
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4 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 2
Friday, January 22, 2010

It's part of the Soho House group, so you know what to expect. Smart dining room, reasonably polished service and prices that are too high for what they offer. Food is as touted as modern British but there is nothing modern about pies, fish and chips and Dover Sole.

I chose their signature dish - mince and boiled potatoes - to see what all the fuss was about. As expected, it was fine. Tasty and good quality mince with some spuds. Nothing my Mum can't knock up on a Tuesday night and not something I'd pay for again. However, other dishes were more interesting and desserts were good. I would return for the atmosphere alone as, thanks to good reviews, the place currently has a very pleasant buzz to it. One to try, but not destined for great things.
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KC
7 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 6
Tuesday, January 05, 2010