Supperclub

After having been to the one in Amsterdam we were curious to see if they could match the experience. They did!
we were with 8 friends and had a super time.
the acts were awesome and so was the food. Paulie the host was very welcoming too.

thumbs up

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I was pretty sceptical (after reading a couple of reviews on here) when my wife booked us in at Supperclub for my birthday but my worries were left at the door. The venue it has to be said is stunning and the concept of the beds was both fun and different. Yes we waited a while for our cocktails to come but that was the only hitch in the whole evening. The food was fantastic (I like to thing myself quite the foodie) and the acts and performances that took place throughout the meal were great. I have been to most of the cabaret restaurants in the west end and this was a much better standard I must say.

Can't wait to return

After a long wait past the 8pm pre-booked time slot, buying overpriced drinks in the noisy bar, we were finally let into the dining and entertainment room. The bright white room with beds and pillows all around the outside adds an unusual twist to the experience, and means you are quite up close and personal with your fellow diners – which might have been fun if I had not been next to a very fidgety larger lady who kept bumping into me at key moments when I was eating.
An amuse bouche of salmon tartare and leek tartlets was brought to each of us first of all – we only wish we'd eaten them quicker as then the waitress took a dish back from me (and from one half of the couple next to us), saying it was actually one per couple – cringe! This basic mistake, and the poor form in taking food away from hungry diners, did not inspire confidence (had they not done this before?). Nevertheless, the amuse bouche was delicious.
The generously portioned starter was tom yam soup with deep fried lotus root, which was spicy enough to feel satisfying and creamy enough to be comforting.
Next came a diet sized main course of chicken supreme with chunky chips, samphire and a roasted tomato, which was unmemorable. The samphire was lost on most of the clientele, who eyed it suspiciously before leaving it. I thought the samphire, more often served with fish, did work with the chicken however.
To finish, tart tatin, with a perfect pastry and apples which had not been over-sweetened, and a delicious creamy custard.
The entertainment being performed in the centre of the room was infrequent, tasteless and performed by talentless “artists”. The place would actually improve without this entertainment, would cause me embarrassment if I were to invite many friends, let alone colleagues, to.

I've been to the Supperclub in Amsterdam, so was expecting big things from the new London venue.
I couldn't have been more disappointed. Having ‘bigged’ the place up to friends who were joining me for my birthday, I was let down from the start. The staff were appalling, service non-existent. We had our starters thrown on to the table and when we enquired whether any of them were veggie, merely got a shrug of the shoulders and no response. Staff then chose to stand directly in front of our bed as the performers started and seemed oblivious (or may be they just didn't care!) about their guests behind them. I'd like to tell you it got better, but I can't, we left. I'm happy to pay £100 per head for food and drinks, but I expect a certain quality of staff, service and food for that. It really was one of the most terrible dining and drinking experiences of my life. Very very disappointed. Perhaps, if you haven't been to the one in Amsterdam, your expectations will be lower than mine, but 2 of the guests who came with me, who hadn't been to a Supperclub before, were equally disappointed. All I can say is, don't believe the hype. It seemed that the Bouncers, bar, cloak room and restaurant staff had the same attitude – they were doing you a favour just being there, they weren't there to serve you. The only decent thing about the whole experience (if you don't include leaving!!) was the Restaurant Manager who apologised profusely… by the looks of things, he's got his work cut out with the London venue. AVOID.

If you're up for a total treat (a great date, spedial birthday, something different with your mates) the Supper Club London, despite its international heritage, is not the place to go…the food is average, truthfully, rather worse than that; the service less than satisfactory, snooty and aloof, and despite the decor and attempt to recreate the supperclub brand as it's known internationally, London, I'm disappointed to admit, doesn't live up to expectation. Such average service (introduced by the aloof gender-contraversial host(ess?)), but heightened by the waiting staff, certainly didn't make for a special night. Its attempt for exclusivity is far from desirable and I'm sure, despite my suport for the brand and what it stands for, the acts performing were less than enthralling. Even more so if you're in touch with the contempary arts offerering over the past couple of years in London (or even Edinburgh Fringe). La Clique it isn't, but you won't be surprised if you regognize a thing or two…how many times can you see a cross-dressing, larger-than-life chap attempting to ruin his vocal cords on the pretence he can sing clasically?! Neither the service nor entertainment was original and worse still, despite the efforts of the design and layout, the staff aren't trained to handle such an eccletic crowd (that's a compliment to who they're currently bringing in!) and as such, this place is not recommended. If you're a try-hard, wanna-be-cool kind of person and have £100 to throw away and are happy to go to the back end of nowhere to do so (the cab driver pointed out a lovely mosque in the road amidst a row of council flats under a flyover), then this new haunt is surely worth checking out…if you really can't think of anything else to spend your hard-earned cash on!

It may have been the divan beds, the simple white wash or the efficient but charmless service, or maybe it was just New Year's Eve but I'm not sure December 31st 2009 was Supper Club London's finest hour.

It would be unfair to say the food at Supper Club was bad, but I think the menu was a little ill conceived. Why spoil a good oyster with what seemed to be a Jerusalem artichoke puree? And fois gras mi-cuit is bound to alienate a few on a set menu. By the third course we'd pretty much given up on the food. It's all well and good the lying down and eating idea, but when they expect you to take your shoes off it gets awkward. But then so does trying to wrestle with a piece of game on a long thin plate in one hand with a glass in wine in the other, (which you daren't put down on the ground lest they swipe it away for health and safety reasons).

Quality wise, they did pull it off, and it's no easy feat to serve that many people at almost the same time, on beds, but I only wish they'd chosen a slightly less pretentious menu and allocated less of our inevitably expensive ticket prices on ingredients and spent a bit more money on the cabaret acts – with great shows like Le Clique around, we've come to expect more than just a man in drag.

And what excuse is there for running out of wines? We had to change wines 3 times during the evening, needless to say to a more expensive listing each time. They may hope everyone's going to order the most expensive wines on the list but surely experience should have told them by now that it won't happen, which makes you wonder whether it's entirely coincidental.

It was New Year's eve though, and all would have been forgotten after a bit of dancing but sadly the music was largely mediocre Euro dance tunes and it never really took off.

Overall, it seems to fall between many stools. It's not especially glamourous or sophisticated, but neither is it very ‘edgy’ or ‘cool’. And it's certainly not a knees-up. There are better places in London to eat, drink, dance and sleep, albeit not necessarily under one roof.

The Supper Club may work in other cities, but you only have to go to the smoking bunker at the London venue to be reminded where you are. I found myself pacing the cage looking out longingly onto the railway tracks, which has to be a first for any New Year's eve.