No.20 at the Sanctum Soho Hotel

I was taken to lunch, with two of us attending.

The room is pleasant and the tables well spread out so talking confidentially is not a problem.

I strolled in and as no-one acknowledged me, I sat down is a bar seat and read the paper – after a few minutes the barman asked me if I wanted a drink, which came rather slowly given the place was more than half empty.

When sat at our table we were told that two of the limited selection of starters were not available. Not good given the selection was limited anyway. We both went for the oxtail soup which was good. I then had the steak and kidney pie, which has good crisp pastry top but both the meat and kidneys was tough and overcooked. My host's rack of lamb was pronounced ‘good’.

The coffees to follow were fine.

Although I wasnt paying, the menu prices were in line with what I would expect for the area but the food was just OK rather than good and the service un-inspiring. Pity because the room works well for a business lunch. I wont be using it again given choice elsewhere in the vicinity.

I've never written a restaurant review before but I've just come back from such an awful lunch experience at No.20 I feel obliged to warn other potential diners of the mistake they'd be making in booking a table here.

My party chose No.20 for a working lunch for 5 on a thursday. The place had more staff than diners, not that you'd notice. Waiting staff were unattentive, looked thoroughtly bored and completely devoid of any personality.
Service was slow – despite a near empty resturant – and unfortunately the food was not worth the extensive wait.

The starters were average but edible, if you choose to ignore this advice and head to No.20 anyway, please avoid the chopped salad, which at £5.00 consisted of a very small bowl of undressed lettice and radish shavings.

The outlook was not promising but we refused to write the place off without giving the main meals a go. The burgers were passable but nothing you couldn't find at a half decent pub. Things took a turn for the worse when we dug into the macaroni cheese which was dry, bland and served on a saucer. The fish meal claimed to be john dory but by the serving size could well have been 3 fried goldfish.

The only positive thing to say about this place is, that after our polite complaints to the manager, the offending dishes were removed from our bill.

London is full of fantastic dining experiences – this is certainly not one of them.

I found the whole setup rather confused interms of decor , felt a bit amateur. The staff were charming and helpful except for the barman who a) garnished my banana and yoghurt cocktail by dumping the WHOLE BANANA SKIN in my drink and then being surprised at my disgust and b) had no idea how to make an Irish coffee and refused to listen to how to do it.
The calves liver was excellent and a nearly ruined evening was saved by the lovely south african chef who resolved the irish coffee debacle by making a Don Pedro which was amazing!

I’ve always been slightly disturbed by the idea of the ‘hotel restaurant’. There’s something decidedly odd about dining at a place where people pay more money to sleep than eat particularly if there’s no big name chef to pull in the crowds. It’s hardly a tempting proposition, is it? So we arrived with trepidation at No 20, the new restaurant attached to Sanctum Soho, a £20 million hotel created by the people behind Embassy, the London club loved by many a footballer.

While we skipped exploring the hotel billed by the breathy press release as a place where ‘bohemia meets rock and roll, disco meets cutting edge’, the look of the restaurant was more Liverpudlian WAG – expensive looking from afar but on closer inspection dreadfully overdone and (dare we say it) cheap. Half-height pink Doric columns are muzzled by glass rods in a low-ceilinged room and half moon shaped booths clad in gold are placed next to Scandinavian-style timber veneer tables – a series of unfortunate mismatches.

Unsure of the décor, we swiftly asked for menus and were handed a battered piece of parchment which looked like it had recovered from two rounds with a dysfunctional Xerox machine –an inauspicious start to an already flaccid evening. Despite the flailing beginning, we bravely ordered from the modern British fare on show. You can choose from either an a la carte menu or a wallet-friendly set menu (two courses at £15.00, three courses for £20.00) although beware of the latter menu as on our second visit it tasted more like suburban canteen slop. To start, our waiter brought over a starter of pea and mint soup (£4.95) from the a la carte, a phantasmagoric potion of a dish with a gloopy texture and an overpowering mint flavour which would have found more favour at Hogwarts.

Meanwhile, the other entrée of smoked salmon and Irish soda bread with dill butter (£9.50) felt insipid and required a sharp kick – an actual one would have worked equally as well. As we glanced around the near-empty room, it was hard to ascertain who would come here. The atmosphere seemed somewhat vacant, although one animated couple did try to fire up the place with a feisty tête-à-tête about Big Brother evictees while a drunken gaggle of suits cracked jokes and their BlackBerries.

Fortunately the mains were a more appealing prospect. The lamb cutlets arrived well cooked and elegantly presented with a drizzled tarragon sauce (£23.50) although our confused waiter was unable to confirm the provenance of the meat ('no sir, not from Provence,' says waiter; no I don’t ask again). A beautifully executed pan-fried sea bream materialised with Dublin Bay prawns draped in an opaque cauliflower cream sauce although it was a little too dear at £24.95.

The wine list is by no means comprehensive and only the five cheapest New World wines were available by the glass which seemed a little stingy. Desserts were of the usual sub-school dinner fare, the kind of puddings that you’d find in the bygone world of Abigail’s Party. Such offerings as lemon sponge pudding with ginger ice cream (£5.00) and blueberry pie with runny pouring cream (£5.00) were pleasant enough, but inessential. No 20 at Sanctum Soho isn’t rock’n’roll that’s for sure. If anything, it’s more like easy listening.

The Square Meal review above is a little misleading – suggesting that No.20 is a buzz of exciting dining. We went for a post-theatre dinner on Saturday night expecting Ivy-levels of excitement and activity, and the room was almost empty – at 10.30 on a Saturday night…? Maybe it's still too new, too soon – but it's certainly not a happening restaurant yet.

That said, the meal was excellent. A comfort food-oriented offering that certainly seems to nod to the Ivy's timeless benchmarks. Breads were original, starters outstanding and main courses excellent, while dessert could not be faulted. The wine list, while admittedly short and populist – has some gems on it.

The room is pleasant enough – I think probably when full of people would draw less attention to itself and more to the other diners. The largely Eastern European service is pleasantly attentive and eager to please – but they still need to get some basics down – such as what makes a Martini dirty and that Bombay Sapphire is a gin.

And it's all surprisingly good value too compared to usual boutique hotel restaurant prices. If the adjoining hotel can help to cultivate something of an atmosphere, it should find its niche as a stylish, dependable SOHO bolthole.