Macondo (Shoreditch)

I went to Macondo in Islington around lunchtime, looking for something fast, tasty and reasonably priced. I settled on the slice of Spanish tortilla with seasonal salad at £5.95. I wouldn't expect anything transcendant for that price but I was a bit aggrieved to receive a fairly small piece of tortilla which was literally just egg and potato; no onions, peppers or seasoning, let alone anything more excting like chorizo. Flavourless. You might expect the "seasonal salad" to comprise a few things that are in-season in December - celery, red cabbage, beetroot, squashes, apple, that kind of thing - but it was an uninspiring, undressed assembly of lettuce (including the stalk), grated carrot and peppers. Nothing more than a plate bulker, with the word "seasonal" thrown in to trick unwary diners into thinking they're getting something special, rather than a side-salad that would not be out of place in a Spud-u-Like.

The sheer mediocrity of the food would not be enough to motivate me to go online and write a bad review, but the clincher came when I asked for some chilli sauce to lend my tortilla a bit of flavour. Puzzlingly, the staff had to put a call down to the kitchen and, 5 minutes later, a thimble of brown sauce arrived via the dumb waiter. It was tasty enough but, when I settled up, they had added £2 to my bill for it. Ludicrous really. So, in summary, anyone with even a modicum of cooking ability could do much better than this at home for about a quarter of the price.
Comment on this reader review

Liam
3 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 0
Wednesday, December 16, 2009