La Cage Imaginaire

Had lunch today.

Starters: Asparagus 4 skinny sticks, bit of beetroot, goats cheese was ok - Calamari rubbery.

Main: Ribeye steak very tough with tasteless horseradish sauce - Stuffed chicken breast - Not stuffed just 3 bits of rubbery chicken with a bit of what tasted like half a teaspoon of plum jam and a teaspoon of over-wilted spinach - soggy roast potatoes.

Sauvignon Blanc £23.95 a bottle - bland

Forget the biscuits made in the school nursery.

Very disappointing!
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Deirdre Williams
4 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 1
Friday, September 14, 2012

Pretty reasonable. It's a local restaurant rather than a fine dining experience. Service very pleasant. Nice touches 'around' the food.

Decent value. It's a prix-fixé format - two dishes for £22. There are a number of dishes (particularly fish) that attract a surcharge. There's a couple of sub-£20 bottles of wine but most start slightly above that.

Snail casserole starter nice but not many snails. Scallop starter (3) came with over-cooked and over-powering chorizo. Coq-au-vin main nice although perhaps of a home-cooked standard.

Seventy quid for two people including a bottle of wine seems great value these days. Hampstead doesn't offer an enormous amount of good food. I'll probably go back if I saw something appealing on the menu.
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Rex - View all reviews by this user
8 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 8
Wednesday, January 25, 2012

An unfortunate experience. We both ordered scallops as a starter. They; there were two of them, were overcooked and did not appear to be fresh. This lack lustre quality extended itself to the entire experience; the decor is terribly dated and the crockery strikingly kitsch.

For the main course, I had fillet of beef but the cut, although tender, was grissley; more synonymous with other cuts of beef. The potato dauphinois was precooked and cold and, as was the general experience, seemed stale. Other accompaniments were a little odd; the fried bread stick slices and sugared broccoli.

The only dynamic component was the waiting staff who certainly visited our table more than twenty times to refil our wine and water glasses, even though I made every effort to indicate that this was not necessary. The upside of this was how much it made us both laugh.

I may have mentioned my disappointments, had anyone enquired as to whether we were satisfied.

Cheap plonk from the Languedoc was good. It almost always is. Otherwise, a rather amusing (for all the wrong reasons) and dissatisfying evening.
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Edward Bond
4 Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 4
Sunday, October 30, 2011

Perhaps it was a bad night, but too many things are so utterly wrong about what should be a great neighbourhood restaurant. The place was full, but within five minutes they had fouled up one order, seated one couple only then to move them outside and almost refused us entry as the reservation I had made had not been written down correctly. The tables were so closely wedged together there was barely enough space to ealk between them and I was bumped several times by (seemingly uninterested) waiting staff. The uninspired table snacks (olives, crisps and one small canape) were presumably there to justify the cover charge and the one piece of bread we were offered each (the owner made it clear we were only to take one piece) was stale but had been reheated in a pretty cheap attempt to make it passable. The main courses had a ring of "la bonne bouffe" to them, but portions were measly for the £15 each we paid. We considered dessert, but at £6.50 each and with nothing else going right we opted to cut our losses. No-one seemed bothered whether we had enjoyed the meal or not, but the standard service charge was nevertheless included. Sadly, this offhand manner was the only thing that carried any gallic authenticity. Disagree with the 'cheap eats' comments here - it is rather just a false economy. Avoid.
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1 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Saturday, October 01, 2011

This is a really lovely restaurant with friendly helpful staff. We (6 of us) went during the lunch time period and all had something from the lunchtime special at two courses for £12.95. All our meals were lovely and we had a lovely time. Will definitely go back again. C'est manifique. The french cafe music played at an acceptable soft level was lovely too.
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kathy
10 Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Wednesday, June 30, 2010