All reader reviews by city luncher

Langan's Brasserie

I was taken here for the first time for dinner by an elderly regular of the place last week. The location, ambience and service are all as you would expect of a good London restuarant; and I guess if that's all you care about then Langans is good. It's certainly busy (clientele seemed to be Mayfair oldsters, tourists and hen parties as far as I could tell, but lively nontheless).

The food really is woeful though. The menu is totally uninspiring, consisting of nursery/pub grub favourites of the 1970's although at decidedly modern prices. Fearing the worst I decided to play safe, even that didn't really work. To start, I was presented a plate of luminously pink, oily and thoroughly unappetising smoked salmon - supermarket stuff is generally better. This was followed by a frankly horrible dish of gristly sausage, glue-like onion gravy and lumpy, reheated mash. This accompanied by some astringent red wine from the eccentric list.

Langans is a throwback to the bad old days of ghastly, slapdash english cooking and does I suppose serve as a benchmark of how much standards elsewhere in London have improved in the last few years - but if you're prepared to take that for granted then best to avoid it all costs

Monday, March 19, 2007
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 1

Pescatori (Dover Street)

Decent, local, family run Italian seafoodie type place. A fair few regular customers plus a lot of tourists. Solid cooking and well sized portions - like most fish restuarants the specials are a good idea. Faintly hit and miss, although very friendly service. You won't go wrong with this place, but you probably won't go back either.

Monday, July 24, 2006
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 8

Pham Sushi

A small and rather unprepossessing room in a dingy road at the edge of the City.

Portions small but cheap.

Actually though, this is the best japanese restauarant I've been to in London by quite a margin. Try the Rock Shrimp tempura with sesame sauce and you'll go back.

Friday, July 21, 2006
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 10

The Wolseley

Been three times

Food is consistently OK (not great, but definitely OK). A few problems with the service though, whilst willing the staff are not all terribly competent, eg

- wrong dishes brought and order muddled

- wrong wine brought and poured - didn't show the bottle first

- and absolutely unforgiveably, poured the dregs of a bottle of claret into our glasses before we could stop it - so a lovely mouthful of sediment to add to the meal

Frankly, the place is rather over-hyped , it's possible to do much better than this for the money

Friday, March 17, 2006
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 4