The Botanist

Hungry after having been to an inspiring play at the Royal Court Theatre on the Sloane Square, the Botanist on the corner seemed like a good idea for dinner before we were to retire for the evening.

As you enter, there is a chic drinks bar and restaurant, each with its own specific areas and both buzzing with activity I must say on this Friday evening.

Though we did not have reservations, we were courteously shown to our table for 2 and quickly settled into making orders and enjoying the slick ambience of this restaurant. We just had a single course each this evening, and for my friend it was a dressed crab in main course portion, whilst I chose to try the confit de canard. We shared sides of broccoli which were tastefully done in a white cream sauce. Food was good to adequate, whilst the service was helpful and polite without being too intrusive.

We spoke of course about the play and replayed some of the dynamics of how it took such real excerpts from our modern day life, and how it was really rather realistic and thus foreboding.

The Botanist certainly scores not only for location but also its buzz, and though food was probably more adequate to good, we would certainly not be weary to turn up again after any other activities we might have finished with on the Sloane Square in future.

Ahh the Botanist…we have shared many great evenings and indeed, mornings, together!

Having lived just down the road from the Botanist it became my local and I must say now it isn't on my doorstep I do miss it. This is the place for an evening of cocktails, canapes and laughter with friends. The champagne cocktails paired with chilli salt squid, steak tartare and Spanish olives is just divine. The salmon fishcakes are also incredible and to be honest Ive eaten so many I'm surprised I didn't turn into one of their delicious fishcakes myself! The food, even the bar food snacks, are all exquisitely cooked and exceed expectation. Surprisingly I've not had a formal sit down meal in their restaurant before, in my mind it hasn't ever seemed the place for that, I much prefer snacking by the bar as it suits that laid back feel. And besides, just to get a table in the restaurant seems quite an act of skill! The bar area does get incredibly busy, I always found the best approach was to act like a German with a sunbed and get in there early and don't move!

The Botanist has been a venue of choice for many a breakfast though! I have yet to find a breakfast to beat it. I also have never spent more money at a breakfast before but thats another matter. I viewed it as one of life's luxuries that needed to be indulged. The scrambled eggs with Scottish smoked salmon and toasted English muffin are to die for! This followed by the fresh fruit platter and one of their wonderful fruit smoothies or milkshakes made it into a great morning!

Yes this place gets busy, and yes maybe some people come here to be seen, but really, try to get over that and enjoy good food and fine drinks!

I recently visited The Botanist on one of my friend's recommendations, she told me to be prepared to fight my way through some perfectly described ‘Sloane rangers’ sipping cocktails in the bar to get to the restaurant. She was right, with fighting gloves on we patiently navigated our way through the beautiful crowd to get to the dining room. We didn't make a booking but were lucky enough to be shown straight to a table.

The menu was different to the one that my friend had described to me but our waiter explained that it had recently changed to keep up with seasonal ingredients, something they do every two months. We were spoilt for choice and decided on each having different dishes so that we could share. The wine list was impressive and not as intimidating as they often can be, with the help of our waiter we chose a bottle of Argentinian Malbec which was very pleasant. To start we had cod cheeks and tongues (something i'd never even heard of before!) and a beef carpaccio. Both delicious. For mains we chose the lamb saddle and the venison loin. We congratulated ourselves on such a fine choice, and left our plates clean. We ended up finishing the evening with a wonderful selection of British cheeses. Service was great, attentive but not intrusive and we felt very looked after during our meal in an obviously busy restaurant.

The bar started to die down later on into the evening so we moved into the bar for a nightcap. The bar is very impressive feature at The Botanist and the bar team were busy making cocktails for the glamourous men and women who had perched themselves in front of them. It's definitely somewhere where i would recommend to my friends, i will be visiting again soon for cocktails with the girls.

The Botanist is a charming place- dinner is a bit sedate, but lovely bar. I liked how the crowds are boisterous & dress to impress. A scene of Chelsea girls, boys & wannabes, a great destination for summer drinks.

I've also had tea there & it was a good choice. I liked how it was a bit eccentric, yet traditional. Somehow I always feel like I've had a good night after visiting there.

I popped into the Botanist for brunch with a friend before doing some shopping on Kings Road. I absolutely loved it. I found the staff professional and friendly and the food was delicious. I had the eggs benedict and even treated myself to a glass of buck's fizz! I would definitely recommend dropping by- it was the perfect start to my day!

We arrived at The Botanist for lunch. Overall the meal was up to its usual high standard, staff are always helpful and courteous but with I think it was 2 staff to a full restaurant, wine refilling and any requests were difficult to achieve and kept breaking into our conversations.

I had jerusalem artichoke soup – tasty but rather watery. My friend had a lovely salad of red endive, walnuts and all sorts of yummy ingredients. All was going well until my friend reached nearly the end of her salad to see a long dark hair on the bottom of the plate in the dressing underneath a piece of chicory and another one after that. We called the waiter over who was apologetic and took the plate to show the Manager.

A few minutes the Manager came over to our table, dropped to his knees and explained that he had been down to the kitchen and no one down there had long hair so it must have got there after leaving the kitchen. Now the implication was not at all acceptable and my friend who can eat there at least twice a week was mortally offended. The Manager said we would not be charged for the salad – I should hope so too and off he went, There was not even a coffee on the house by way of an apology – I think they need to shake up their ideas and realise that their customers do not eat there to contrive a free meal. You will notice for service I have rated 1 – this is based purely on The Manager!! The main courses were delicious and this part of the meal ran smoothly.

We will eat there again but hope that they buck up their customer relations side of the restaurant.

A hot friday night in Sloane Square, a group of us went out for dinner and drinks at the Botanist. Usually for us its a place for a quick drink on the way home. Tonight we decided to step out for the evening and make it dinner as well. What a pleasant surprise we had.

The bar was packed the people all out in force drinking on the street frontage herded in by a lovely chap on the door. We went through to the restaurant and sat and were greeted by a lovely chap who was to be our waiter. He was showing a new waiter what to do, but still payed great attention to us.

A lovely gazpacho soup to start, one of my girlfriends had the duck egg which was interesting. Nice but not to my liking. To follow we had primavera rissotto, duck and bream. All dishes took a while to get to us but we were enjoying ourselves so it didnt matter much. For dessert we had the pimms jelly which we shared and it was divine! What a great idea for a dessert!

The cocktails from the bar were great, Victoria Pink and the raspberry collins were some of the best ive ever had. I dont know how they do it when they are that busy, But im glad they did it. You have to try the champagne coktails here very inventive, and a great use of floral aspects and home made spirit flavours.

Overall the staff were fantastic, friendly, very helpful with the menu and cocktails. Always one step ahead of our thoughts we had everything we needed. And so nice to see people enjoying their job which made us enjoy our evening so much more. The food was great… flavours lovely and made the simple dishes taste wonderful. One thing I would say is the dining room is very loud, even with the doors to the bar closed you couldnt have a converstaion without yelling. But hey, Its the weekend!!

I wasnt hugely enamoured with The Botanist – there just didnt seem to be anything special about the food. The place itself is hugely buzzy so i felt you were paying for the atmosphere rather than anything else. Full of Alexa Chung lookalikes or glam people coming back from Ascot.

I decided on steak which was pretty decent and a better piece than expected. Chips were average as were the other sides. My friend had the gazpacho soup and risotto for main – all part of the set menu. Id say that the selection on the menu was much more limited than the one you see on the web but all the standard fare is there (except a choice of about 5 mains rather than the 10 or so on the web). Service was very inexperienced but friendly enough. Pudding again was relatively average – a Knickerbockerglory – no real skill here but was good. Overall the bill for my steak and pudding and one drink was £45 for pretty hefty bill!

I think the owners also own the Cadogan Arms which is further down Kings Road and offer 50% off food via Squaremeal so i did find myself wondering whether i was paying just to be near Sloane Square if its all the same owners. I think if i were going on food alone, its nothing too special but if you are looking for a buzzy place to meet friends and have a buzzy vibe, then the Botanist should suit.

I’ve been meaning to eat at The Botanist for quite some time but never seemed to find an opportunity to make it there. Every time I drive past it’s teeming with slick-looking Chelsea chaps and attractive blondes sipping on cocktails and chain-smoking Marlboro Lights. Today is no exception; we fight our way through the packed main bar to get to the restaurant which, happily, is a much more calm and less hectic affair.

The menu is not over-complicated with just a handful of dishes for each course, I kick-start the meal with mmarinated scallops and potatoes with hazelnuts and truffled mayonnaise and my companion opts for the Foie gras and chicken liver parfait with toasted brioche. My scallops dish is essentially raw but cooked by the acidity of the marinade, which is lovely and subtle and doesn’t overpower the delicate slivers of scallops.

Crunchy sugar coated hazelnuts and sliced new potatoes are pleasant, although I would have preferred a simple marinated scallop starter with just a little of the mayonnaise. The Foie gras and chicken liver parfait is delicious with a vanilla and raspberry vinaigrette to cut through rich, almost buttery goodness of the parfait.

I choose a simple main course of gently poached wild cod with aioli which is simply plated and dotted with bursts of almost neon-green broad beans and has an intense garlic punch from the aioli, making it a perfectly satisfying dish for spring. My companion doesn’t do fish and chooses instead the 35 day aged Angus rib-eye steak with chips and Béarnaise sauce which hits the spot nicely, although the meat seems to have lost some of its heat en-route from kitchen to table, it is still enjoyed.

Staff are friendly and allow us time to digest our main before offering us dessert, which is always a good move and doesn’t make you feel hurried. The warm chocolate cake with pistachio praline ice cream is calling for me and I persuade my companion to go for the white chocolate and honeycomb parfait with strawberry compote.

Desserts arrive with a nice but slightly un-chilled glass of Muscat de Beaumes de Venise dessert wine. My chocolate cake doesn’t quite hit the desired note of satisfaction and is essentially a nice enough square of sponge but the accompanying pistachio praline ice cream more than made up for it. As usual I always have to take a bite the other dessert; white chocolate and honeycomb parfait which is nice enough but not really for me either. Perhaps I’m too much of a savoury girl or perhaps desserts have to really be super special to grab my attention – I am not certain which is more true, but I did enjoy my starter and main, so it really isn’t so bad.

This place has too many covers for the staff and the kitchen to keep up. The service tends to be friendly but haphazard and unreliable, and the predictable food can take ages to come. It's very buzzy, which is good, the tables are all very close together, which isn't, and it's too expensive for what you get. At a pinch it's not a bad place, the lively bar is a good place for a drink, and they make a pretty good job of the cocktails.

It was a complete fluke finding The Botanist, but what a good one! I'd booked tickets to see a show at my favourite theatre – The Royal Court, and my friend and I normally just grab a drink and something small to eat at the theatre bar/cafe, but we ended up there very early, so decided to try somewhere else nearby.

We didn't have dinner, but had a couple of small things from the bar menu, and some delicious white wine recommended by the utterly helpful man behind the bar. Next time we will make sure to have enough time to have dinner here. It looked amazing. Can't wait!

I don't normally travel the west side of this fair city. I end up spending most of my time in my beloved east, but went to this restaurant for a friend's birthday dinner, and we had such a wonderful evening. The food and wine, were absolutely outstanding. The service was great, and the atmosphere very ‘cool’. I'll definitely be back when I venture to that side of town again.

The restaurant part I fear is now getting completely over run by the success of the bar. Maybe the management are happy with the money they are making in the bar and taking their eye off the food offering. The food has gone downhill and the service is starting to be a joke. Very noisy so don't eat here if you are wanting a good gossip or of an age were hearing is dropping!

But you can not argue that the bar is a great place to have a drink and to imbibe a bit of the Chelsea set.

Our Sunday lunch at the Botanist last week was great and I'm hoping it'll become a regular occurrence.

The prices are a touch steep for what is in reality a gastropub menu, but this is Sloane Square so that's to be expected. My roast beef was beautifully cooked and the desserts were gorgeous (the rhubarb souffle is really light & fluffy) – there was a table of desserts set up by the entrance and we raced through our main course to get to them!

Service was a bit slow though and we had to wait nearly half an hour for our (reserved) table.

The Botanist is a very buzzy place – the times I've been both the bar and restaurant have been heaving with plenty of people enjoying themselves. I can only really describe the place as adequate unfortunately – the dishes are relatively good but I would expect a little more bang for my buck and can't help feeling that it's not too much more than an overpriced Gastropub living off the relative wealth of the locals. Given the fact that there are so many other good venues in the area it's doubtful I'll return. On the brighter side service is good given the hectic atmosphere and the menu quite extensive – the cheese selection was probably the highlight for me. West End Prices without West End Quality.

My party of three had a superb time at The Botanist last night. I had been keen to try it for some time due its attractive decor and was not disappointed. Its modern understated dining room is an impressive place to take anyone.

What surprised me more was the food. It is rare that I want to eat everything on the menu but in this case I did. The menu included lots of interesting flavour combinations such as the venison, red onion jam, red cabbage, blackcurrant and sun dried tomatoes main. Many other items had this creative fusion plus great presentation.

Service was snappy and helpful throughout although the red wines by the glass left a little to be desired. Best of all was the price. Three of us had a three course meal and a bottle of wine for £50 each in a setting and with a quality of food that felt worth a lot more. I thoroughly recommend The Botanist and it deserves to become a destination restaurant in its own right.

The Botanist has already fallen on hard times.

Once a fan of the Botanist, having gone to the restaurant during opening week for a mid-week dinner, then the following week for Sunday lunch, and then subsequently on several other occasions since its opening, I have regrettably witnessed a slip in both the quality of food and standards of service.

The quality and execution of dishes has deteriorated over the last couple of months. Staple dishes on the menu such as the botanist seasonal salad, has gone from a contemporary delicious mix of seasonal ingredients, to a dreary sludge caused by over-enthusiastic pouring of dressing. Other dishes such as the sunday roast beef have also slipped in standards.

Service is the Botanists' main weakness though, with rude and inept waiting staff.

These negative points made, there is one very positive point to made about the Botanist, and that is in the cocktails. They are fantastic, and the venue is a great place to enjoy a drink and watch the hustle and bustle around sloane square.