Arbutus

I have been a fan of Arbutus for years and eat there regularly. The food and service is always good, especially the service - which is personable yet professional.

My visit there yesterday totally destroyed everything I've admired about their staff and ethos. It was a busy evening at about 7pm and we were seated readily. Our waiter was very nice but also very stressed. He was perspiring and sweat was literally dripping off his head. He tried to be calm but he was in a hurry when describing the menu to us. My dinner partner and I felt stressed.

My dish the Fish Boulabaisse arrived and the fish wasn't cooked through. I sent the dish back only for it to return looking like another dish. The chef has decided to fry it rather than poach it. The dish had a layer of oil floating on it. I explained to the waiter that this dish wasn't right and he tried to explain that the dish is cooked this way! I've eaten this dish numerous times and as a chef, I know the difference. The manager then came and he explained that because I had complained the fish wasn't cooked (the middle of the fish was raw!), the chef had decided to grill it because poached fish cannot be poached again.

My understanding of a Michelin Star restaurant is that the service and quality should be of a high standard and pride? Shouldn't the chef re-cook the dish then? The manager said he could ask the chef to make me a new dish should I request so. I declined as I had lost my appetite by then. The manager and waiters then avoided our table like the plaque while I watched my partner consume his meal. When he finished his meal, the manager came to clear the table. As he was in the act of clearing the table, he told us our meal was on the house and to feel free to order some dessert to make up - all this while, he never established eye contact at all. It felt like they offered unwillingly and made to feel like we were being unreasonable.

If I was dining in a greasy spoon, I could probably accept this level of service, but this is a Michelin Star restaurant! I was very sad that a restaurant that had such quality before is now so poor. The setting was not relaxed or inviting - the lighting was bright, there was no table linen, the quality of the tables and chairs looked cheap. What's happened to the real Arbutus?
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Marie - View all reviews by this user
0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Friday, September 23, 2011

Sophisticated place that means serious business! My squid and mackerel burger was good, but my boyfriend ordered the eel starter which was to truly die for. The rabbit was again good but my boyfriend's lamb again beat my dish - juicy and cooked to perfection. The service was fantastic. The dauphinoise pie which accompanied the lamb and the cottage pie which came with the rabbit were simply delicious. Chocolate fondant was unusual, tasted more like a mousse and was slightly disappointing as I'm not a huge fan of mousse. But to sum it up, £130, two carafes of wine, two appetizers, two mains and a portion of dessert later - superb dinner and will definitely return.
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Sophie
9 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 8
Monday, August 15, 2011

This was the best dinner I've ever eaten! The gratin dauphinois was absolutely amazing, the filet mignon was so tender and to top it all off the wine matched perfectly with my meal. I couldn't have asked for anything better! Bon appetit!
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10 Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Just got back from lunch with two colleagues and it was by far the best set lunch I've had there (others have been very good but flawed). I had a spring vegetable soup, which was lovely: light, flavourful, with bursts of bright green from peas, shelled broad beans and asparagus dotted among the other vegetables, and beautifully herbed with tarragon and basil. One chum had the same, the other had an amazing soft-poached Burford Brown with Parma ham and parmesan foam. He had a very good seafood risotto for main, while we had an absolutely delicious, moist rabbit dish with aubergine mash (for want of a better term), gnocchi, red peppers, courgettes, basil, and bits of green olive scattered about the plate giving little salty flavour bursts. The rabbit was beautifully cooked, and the whole dish was absolutely delicious. Really, really good. Pudding was a custard tart that wobbled charmingly, with a few strawberries. Absolutely delicious too. Everything was very well presented, and the bread was excellent ()and offered repeatedly). Service was good but slightly intrusive, especially at the beginning when it was very empty - slightly over-friendly and chatty waiters. We had a small carafe (250ml) of Picpoul white between us (work!) for £10. With two coffees, and the wine, AND service, the bill was £75. £75! For an absolutely delicious, beautifully-presented three-course lunch with a bit of wine and coffees! Bargain. Food alone is £17 a head.

Previous visits have been marred by small portions or salty soup, but this had basically no flaws whatsoever with the food, and only a slight complaint about intrusive waiters. Otherwise, a really, really good and enjoyable meal with outstanding value.
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RichardM
8 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 10
Monday, May 09, 2011

Our second visit on a Saturday lunchtime in which half the tables were occupied by the time we arrived just after 12.30, so its a popular place. My wife ate the 3 course set lunch,which at £16.95 is a bargain but which I felt likely to be somewhat dull and a way away from what the restaurant usually cooks, so I ate a la carte. I ate two very nice courses- the first a "burger" of mackerel and squid; the second a rolled stuffed shoulder of rabbit accompanied by broad beans, artichoke , what looked like spinach and a hefty portion of cottage pie made from shoulder of rabbit. All this was good , the service was efficient and pleasant, the wines good value and tasty even when chosen in 250ml carafes from the cheaper end of the list. But I left with questions .

Why serve with my main and my wife's starter a spinach leaf so bitter that it will have challenged people to eat it. I have no problem with bitter- but this was indeed bitter in spades?

Why serve a double expresso that was acid to the extent that it was unpleasant?

Why have a menu of starters and mains that seems deliberately challenging and unusual, and then pair it with desserts that are pretty much what you'd get anywhere with not a shred of creativity ( and frankly not much real cooking) shown? Surely if you've come here for the creative cooking that you won't find on every street in London, them you expect that to be carried right through the menu?

So all in all an enigma- some really good food and then things that I just fail to understand. If there is a strategy here its not being carried through . I had a good meal here, but it could have been better.
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David Henderson
8 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Saturday, April 09, 2011

This was my second visit to Arbutus. After the first occasion I wrote my first ever review (I can't find it on my computer so I don't know what I said!). Suffice to say we once again had a super evening and delicious dinner. It is all so relaxed and friendly and everything seems to work. We had the same buzzy, Italian waitress, Leila, who was a delight.

I have also been to Les Deux Salons a couple of times and loved that too.

Someone seems very good at getting it all right. Here's to the next time!
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Jacqueline Winarick
8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 8
Thursday, April 07, 2011

Unusual menu. I had the rabbit cooked in three different ways. One piece was rolled up, one was stuffed with offal and the third was in a rabbit shepherd's pie. Unfortunately this was a bit watery. We gave the tarte tartin 9/10 as the apple was lovely but the pastry a tiny bit soggy. Service was spectacular from the lovely Italian waitress. Very good Soho vibe.
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BigShoes - View all reviews by this user
9 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 9
Monday, February 28, 2011

Been here a few times over the last few years for lunch and dinner.

The service is always very friendly and accomodating, especially when I've just dropped in on the off chance without a booking.

Some of the dishes can be unusual as they use a lot of offal, tongue, pigs head etc. but they are always interesting. The squid and mackerel burgers are really good, as are the chicken wings.

The star dish for me is the saddle of rabbit with shoulder pie, which is simply delicious. I always try to order a different main course but always end up choosing this dish - when something's this good though why not? I hope they keep it on the menu for a long time to come.

Nice selection of breads and wines. Desserts are ok, but lack a bit of wow factor. The restaurant itself could do with warming up a little in terms of temperature and feel - though they have made good use of the limited space they have. These are small gripes though for an otherwise great restaurant - I always leave here happy.

The pre-theatre menu is also a bargain at £18.95 for 3 courses in a Michelin starred restaurant. Recommended.
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Hopey - View all reviews by this user
8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 8
Monday, November 29, 2010

Well, what a splendid lunch.

We were first of the lunchtime session so looked at menus in a cavern of emptiness, but gradually the place filled up. An eclectic mix of Soho's old rascals, thirtyish media people being beautiful and some heavyweight suits schmoozing.

The menu is interesting; odd offals, old faithfuls and fish combinations that sound unusual but are reassuring in theory if not in name.

A starter of pigs head was rich tastiness with an arty swirl of superfine puree potato and a dollopette of fruity stuff. It tasted much better than I make it sound. My eating chum had porchetta that looked pretty and tasted better.

My main was the brave boy's choice - tripe and trotter. The trotter (I think) arrived surrounded by a porky sauce on a martial crostini, with its own little plate. the main plate had a wrap of unidentifiable porkiness with a slightly sweet sauce. Little tripe parcels arrived in their own copper dish with an altogether different sauce, some potatoes greens and bits of bacon to snuggle next to. Three distinct flavours but maybe a bit too similar in slow cooked texture.

Chum meanwhile was tucking into a slow cook piece of ox cheek that Elizabeth David could have cut with a spoon. The vegetables that came with it were a little uninspired but everything was reported a tasting as good as it gets.

We washed it down with a not-too-overpriced St Emillion, some fizzy water and some good coffee in place of the puds we couldn't have eaten.

Service was friendly without being intrusive, the smiley waiter a more than adequate counterpoint for the slightly snotty one at front of house.

All in all, it was an excellent way to spend a hundred quid at lunchtime, on those rare occasions when one has a hundred quid and a lunchtime to spare.

Will I go back? Bet your life I will.
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Jes
7 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 7
Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Blancmange, or in their view Pannacotta, not even turned out of a glass dish with a half of greengage cut into quarters with the brown bits from round the stone is not Michelin star food ....... not even road side cafe standard.

Too many waiters asking if everything was ok and the rest of the meal ordinary but passable. Would not go back.
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2 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 1
Tuesday, October 26, 2010