All reader reviews by Kwev

Kensington Place

Lovely room. Efficient enough, though not exactly enthused waiting staff. But the food? Really not at all good.

We took a party of twelve here last Friday night. I appreciate that large groups are difficult to cater to satisfactorily. I know that and make due allowance for it. But the food was just rubbish.

My starter: Coconut broth with dumplings (I know: why order that? Get that in an oriental resturant not a bread and butter modern UK place. Silly me, I know). What I got was two sad little dumplings which sat on my plate for almost 10 minutes, curling, drying up, and dying there on the cold porcelain, before a little jug of watery, badly spiced, coconut water arrived. It tasted like a couple of garden slugs served with a watered down Korma. I left half of it despite being starving.

My main: a sad little fillet of sea bream which had been pan fried to death. It would have been a criminal waste of good fish were it not for the fact that the fish was clearly not fresh. It smelled and tasted distinctly fishy in a bad way. What the Russians used to call "not of the first freshness": that is to say, slightly off. What was it served with? Nothing memorable. Left most of it.

I didn't bother with dessert (why would you?). So ,was still hungry. The majority of the party felt their food, too, was well below par.

The wine list was, relatively speaking, a saving grace: some interesting choices. All marked up a tad higher than they should have been (Perrier Jouet NV at over £60 a bottle is always a bad sign). The Gavi (which they only had 4 bottles of) was excellent. The Alborinio was good too. The Prosecco was fair.

Our waiter was ok but strictly without charm. The manager?/sommelier was nice enough, and seemed a little anxious - as though he knew the food was a a bit poor and regretted how badly it let the whole place down.

The restaurant was pretty busy, and there was a nice atmosphere. If they got in a brigade who could cook it's be good, this place.

I'd happily have paid more for decent food. As it was the apparently ok-ish pricing was way over the top for food that was what you'd expect at a dinner party given by a friend who couldn't cook very well and hadn't entertained for a year or two. Not much of a recommendation I'm afraid.

Monday, October 05, 2009
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 4