The Cuban (Camden)

I come here every Sunday as I'm a salsa fan. But would never eat here. I eat in the market first as its much better, fresher and cheaper! The bar service is really slow, often there's 5 bar staff standing around and none of them serving - so a genuine Cuban experience! But...the live music on Sundays is the best I've ever seen in the UK.
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Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 4
Monday, February 04, 2008

If you're looking for fantastic service, fantastic food then don't come here.

My best friend organised for both our birthdays to be celebrated there this evening and confirmed the table this week for 11 of us.

We arrived and our 'reserved area' was occupied by other drinkers, when speaking with the waiting staff they looked on watlessly whilst myself and my 10 guests stood waiting for them to move the other customers.

They then offered us the empty but reserved area for another party instead-but this was unsuitable as there was not enough space.

We asked for the manager this took 15mins of more waiting standing around, whilst no-one wanted to take ownership of the situation. Both myself and 3 of my guests spoke with 3 other members of staff before they even started to move the customers that were sitting and dining in our area.

To make matters worse the other party arrived and of course that host was also not impressed.

Finally 20mins into us arriving we were seated - a manager had still not appeared and when he did, he was cocky and arrogant.

We had to ask for a free round of drinks, instead of being offered something to smooth the situation over and to add insult to injury when our mains arrived one of my guests was then informed that they had ran out of the dish he had ordered.

He was eating his steak once we had all finished,not the way I had planned to spend my birthday.

The food was average, but as a whole a bit hit and miss-most of the steaks were good, but the chicken was dry and my rump of lamb terrible - fatty and tough (i'd asked for medium rare).

This place is only good for a night out for listening to cuban music and drinking, forget it for food you'll be disapointed and the service is non-exsistent.
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j - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Saturday, January 26, 2008

Don't go to Cuban for lunch. We made a booking for a friend's leaving do. We arrived at 1pm, we got out starters at 2pm and our mains at 2.20pm... most of our party had to leave early and cancel their mains, which meant that other people got the wrong food.

The atmosphere was lacking, the smell was of last night's vomit... and the table wasn't clean.

the barman didnt speak English and they were drilling in the walls the whole time we were there.

the tapas starters were good, but the mains were disgusting... cold, overly chewy meat and brown salad.

I can imagine that this place is a lot of fun when you are drunk and dont care about quality.
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Katy
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Wednesday, January 23, 2008

I went last night for a works christmas meal out and I was sorely disappointed with the food. It was awful! We didnt have starters but my main mal was chicken and all it was was 3 pieces of chicken on the bone (very small pieces) under a terrible sauce with far too much pineapple on. I couldnt eat my rice as it was completely covered with the sauce so I just picked at the chicken and was jeft hungry! My colleague had the vegetarian paella and it was so awfu she only had one mouthful and then left it. The dessert wasnt much better. I had a fruit salad which came in a glass and was covered in custard! YUK! The drinks were seriously overpriced with them charging 20 pounds for a supermarket type wine! Extortionate. We were also sat by the door so were freezing the whole time as the door kept being left open by people going out to smoke. We had to keep our coats on during the meal! The staff were very nice though and maybe we should have complained, but being good british citizens, we didnt!

Saying all that, once we moved downstairs the atmosphere was great along with the music. We had a great time dancing. The only down side to that part of the evening was that the toilets were outside and up a massive flight of stairs at the side of the building. It was quite un nerving so we kept going in groups!

I would recommend this for just an evening dancing to great cuban music but please give the restaurant a miss!!
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Missy me
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 0
Saturday, December 22, 2007

We went to The Cuban last night regardless of reading these slightly outdated and relatively bad reviews. I must admit that the atmosphere and live music was definately the best part of this restaurant.

They have an enormous menu with loads of tapa's to choose from. All the food arrived together despite our mix of mains and tapa's orders. We had a fairly large group so we expected a time delay on our meal. The restaurant was also rather busy.

I have no complaints about the service. Our waitress was rather accomodating.

The food looked good and my meal was great, especially the sauce. Hmmm.

The party I was with did have a couple of complaints about their meal. Mostly about being overcooked. Regardless everyone ate their meals.

They have an enormous bar with loads of cocktails to choose from. I wouldnt choose The Cuban to go for food only, but rather a lovely place to relax with cocktails, live music and dancing.
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Bianca
Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 4
Saturday, October 06, 2007

Ate here last week and was incredibly impressed. The Tapas menu (which was far more spanish than cuban) was some of the best I've ever tasted, the chorizo and calamari in particular were great. Finding good Tapas in London isn't easy and although this place has a cavernous, chain restauarant feel and is full of screeching out-of-towners on the weekend, I would highly recommend a visit just for the great snack menu. Just make sure you set aside a good 30mins to get served at the bar, the barman are incredibly slow.
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Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 4
Friday, July 20, 2007

Words cant describe my disappointment for this resturant. the services was very slow not to mention the discuss over the food.

It was my 21st birthday and had booked a table which they kindly reserved for us.

once we sat it took 20 minutes for a waitress to come take our orders, and that wasnt even the food orders. the drinks took a further 15 minutes to arrive.

once we have decide what we all was going to eat, the waitress told us there was no chicken or pork. so to my disappointment there wasnt much left to order from. when i finally order a wrap it was very bland. half of the party i was with didnt even eat. the waitress also orgot a number of things we ordered

The only good think to say regarding this resturant was that the atmosphere was lovely and virbrant.
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Nicole
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 4
Friday, June 29, 2007

IF YOUR THINKING OF GOING DON'T EVEN BOTHER. Ive never been so disgusted in my life.

I booked this restaurant for a friends 21st Birthday, thinking "great cocktails great food," but it was not so. To start we ordered cocktails a tad over priced, and nachos. We received our nachos first and about 20 minuites later our drinks arrived. How does that work? But the drinks tasted fab so hey can't complain.

Time to order our mains only to be told that they have run out of ribs, okay we will have chicken instead, but guess what 5 mins later waitress returns WE HAVE NO CHICKEN!!! How ridiculous is that, a restaurant running out of meat on a weekday. Anyway we still had a little hope in this place and ordered whatever we could. Our mains arrived and only 2 out of 8 were satisfied (they had a salad, you cant go wrong). My steak in crusty bread was ice cold and served on a burger bun, I say no more. To end we got 25% of the bill and 2 mains deducted, they obviously knew the food was no good.

This place is a let down as it has a great atmosphere, location and good drinks.
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MOI
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 1
Friday, June 29, 2007

We made a reservation for this restaurant and arrived early to see if we could get a table but we saw the restaurant and had doubts. The atmosphere seemed good and the waiters seemed busy but friendly. Although none of them approached us while we were hovering around. The restaurant seemed really dirty though, and not a very romantic atmosphere. As it was our 6th Anniversary we left without eating.
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Walerón - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 5
Friday, April 20, 2007

I was also there with my girlfriend on Valentine's, and like everyone else had to wait incredibly long for our food. We ordered two cocktails which came promptly.

After almost an hour I hailed a waiter to ask about the delay and he told me that there was a problem to do with the dumb-waiter/food lift, so the food was being sent in batches.

I wasn't entirely satisfied with his answer but seeing as how everyone else was waiting we just accepted it.

Though I had to ask for more champagne (there was 1 complimentary glass per person), I saw waiters happily serving it to other tables.

Throughout the night the waiters remained very calm and polite, and relievingly apologetic.

Most tables did walk out but I decided to persevere and in the end our main was served almost 2 hours after we sat down.

The food was good, the service was good, the atmosphere is great.

The manager made himself very available and accessible and was also very apologetic, refusing to charge us, or the table next to us who informed him they were leaving.

I believe this restaurant deserves another chance, and all reviews from Valentine's should be disregarded as a result of a one-off incident. The quality of the service and food was enough to redeem the unfortunate incident.
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Gavin
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 5
Saturday, February 17, 2007