Andrew Edmunds

This is a Restaurant that pretentiously insists you book no more than a week in advance, rings you on the day to confirm your reservation, then when you rock up at the allotted time, tells you your table isn't ready. No apologies, no “have a complimentary drink to alleviate your inconvenience” more “just stand to one side until we tell you your table is ready”, which in itself was easier said than done, seeing as there was hardly any room to sit down at the cramped tables let alone stand up in the passageway for any length of time. Some would describe this place as cosy, intimate and romantic. I would describe it as uncomfortable noisy and claustrophobic.
When we were eventually allowed to sit down, the food was no less enthralling than their rude staff. Crab spaghetti that tasted of absolutely nothing, and steaks, though tender, had no flavour at all; one member of the party enjoyed their sea bass. Because of its location, this Restaurant doesn't care whether you come back or not, and sadly behaves accordingly.

Dark, cosy and romantic. It's a restaurant that wraps you up in a slightly sexy cuddle, like a beautiful older French lady wearing her lover's jumper. Imagine a ramshackle and quaint bistro, with disarmingly efficient and yet laid back staff, a wine list curated by someone with a keen eye for a bargain and fantastically fresh, unstuffy fare prepared from whatever the chef feels is best at the market that week. The menu is handwritten before being photocopied, the wine list changes weekly. Paper cloths, mis-matching furniture and spluttering wine bottle candlesticks certainly aren't contrived, but certainly won't help win them a star.

With such atmosphere, it's all we can do to stop ourselves ripping our clothes off then and there, but I didn't get the stomach I've got today by ignoring my basest food based desires at the exclusion of all others, so we dived into the menu instead. Firm fleshed smoked eel comes with beetroot chutney and horseradish cream, complex but perfectly balanced mix of sharp and milky smooth flavour and soft but crunchy texture. I also somewhat share my obliging guest's cauliflower and cumin fritters. A firm patty fried and served with a delicate raita.

The mains follow a similar rustic tack. There's nothing too challenging here, though the kitchen isn't afraid of a little nose to tail eating, when appropriate. A muscular and resolutely unthreatened hunk of fresh cod wearing a cape of herbs reclines royally on a bed of wilted spinach and tomato coated broad beans. It's not elegant, but my god does it taste good. And that's what little I managed to scavenge from under my guest's now watchful eyes.

An Angus beef shepherd's pie on the lunchtime menu didn't make it as far as the evening, I was smugly informed by our waiter it had wound up as the staff lunch. A shame, as I'd had my eye on it since walking past earlier and seeing it on the board outside. Um'ing and ah'ing between a seafood paella, heaving with langoustine and shellfish, and a lamb shank I was finally able to kick the menu Tourettes and dug into one of the best bits of throwaway lamb I can remember. Sinking into a quicksand of pureed potato, it bravely clung onto a thick branch of perfectly cooked cabbage. To no avail, I drowned it in a thick gamey gravy and slowly stripped the soft, succulent meat from the thick bone.

Sated, though with just enough room to share a treacle tart from the trencherman's list, the end of the excellent rose Sancerre turned my thoughts to matters romantic once more. We gazed at each other over the drippy candle and sighed… deeply… There's no doubt that the mood and the food provokes, but like Macbeth's porter and his wine, while it provokes the desire its sheer volume takes away any possibility of the performance.

Reservations are only taken a week out, which is useful to know, and I find the upstairs a (tiny) bit more pleasant than the seating downstairs. Just don't ask for my table, or I'll really have to kill you.

I have a system when I sit down in a restaurant. On being handed a menu I first look at the choices of main course. Based on that decision I then chose something complimentary to start and an appropriate drink. This system has served me well for the last 30 years. The only time it comes off the rails is on the very rare occasion that I can’t choose a main course.

This is what happened on my last visit to Andrew Edmunds. The choices on the daily menu on that particular day all sounded amazing. In a way I would have been happier if the staff had chosen at random and delivered their offering as a surprise.

In the end I opted for the scallops ceviche to start and the gnocchi for a main course with a beautiful and reasonable priced bottle of St Aubin. It was a delicious meal. I loved my starter; it was full of small scallops with mixed leaves and a refreshing sauce. Main course was just as good with a wonderful tomato and ricotta sauce. My only criticism of the entire night was that the base on my treacle tart was slightly (and I do mean slightly) too thick. I washed it down with the nicest bottle of Tokaji ever.

As for the service, well, it was as brilliant as the meal. I have been going to Andrew Edmunds since the early 90’s and it is consistently excellent. I can think of few London restaurants that can deliver this level of satisfaction.

The only central london restaurant I have in my contacts list. It is a great place that we have never been disappointed with.

Great for a romantic meal

This restaurant has clearly seen better days. The service when we visited at lunchtime was non existant and we would have walked out except that we were waiting for our host to arrive, who was paying. Upstairs is cramped and downstairs, where we were eventually seated, gloomy. We were curtly told the restaurant did n't serve soft drinks (i.e. coke or similar) and the coffee machine was out of order. The food was very so so and certainly nothing to get excited about. The waitress spilt drink over two of our guests and said nothing until prompted. All in all a very poor experience and I was glad I was n't paying.

I visited Andrew Edmunds for the first time last night with a friend. The restaurant was recommended by her boss who said that this is his ‘favourite resaturant in London’ so we went their with high expectations…we were not dissapointed!

We arrived at the restaurant 25 minutes late for our booking but the staff were not at all put out and quickly showed us to our table downstairs. It's a very small and intimate restaurant and has such a warm, cosy and homely feel and the smells coming out of the kitchen were fantastic.

We ordered a lovely bottle of 2008 Fleurie, the halloumi cheese starter and steak for main. The starter was absolutely gorgeous, so many flavours on the plate and they all complemented each other so well. The halloumi was devine – but I am a sucker for squeaky cheese! The steak was cooked perfectly, lovely and pink in the middle and served with a beautiful light peppercorn sauce – it could have done with a little more sauce but that's just my preferance. The steak came with a lovely mash and long stem brocolli which were both equally as good. We finished the night with a Neals Yard Cheese board and another glass of red wine.

Andrew Edmonds is a fantastic little restaurant that I will definitely be recommend to others and I will be visiting again very soon!

I spend far too much money on eating out. It’s one of the inconvenient pleasures of living in a city with 50 Michelin-starred restaurants and hundreds of secret hideaway eateries just waiting to be discovered and then savoured.

Despite a constant urge to try out new places however, I always find myself returning to one of my favourite Soho establishments, Andrew Edmunds on Lexington Street.

Admittedly, Andrew Edmunds receives most of my custom during the winter months. It’s somewhere familiar to escape the drizzle and swap the falling temperatures for the warm dark glow of intimate candle-lit tables, plain white tablecloths, great British food and an extensive red wine list. I wasn’t entirely convinced therefore that I’d made the right choice when, on one of the warmest days of the summer so far, I reached for the phone and booked a table for two downstairs at this charming gourmet bolt-hole.

Maybe I opted for a table downstairs so we could pretend that the balmy summer’s evening unfolding on the street outside was actually a dark winter’s night as we swapped stories over a naked flame and drank a 2006 mid-priced bottle of Argentinian red.

Actually, the real reason I requested downstairs is because that’s where my preferred table is located (the only restaurant where I actually know which table I prefer). Tonight, table 22, side on to all the other diners so that you’re not distracted by their food choices or over-heard snippets of conversation, was available and ours for three straight hours.

My starter choice was the same starter I always go for at this home away from home diner – Dressed Crab (superb). After our very amiable Kiwi waitress Katy had joked about the hand-written menu and then translated the hieroglyphics, my guest went for Lincolnshire asparagus vinaigrette with thin slices of Pecorino cheese.

For main, I went for the Calasparra risotto with squid, mussels, prawns, clams, chorizo and langoustine whilst my guest plumped for the poached wild sea trout, accompanied by Jersey Royals and a watercress mayonnaise. I had definitely plumped for the more flavoursome dish as my seafood arrived infused with chili and was extremely satisfying with just the right amount of heat. The trout looked a tad boring but I was assured that it tasted very nice.

I rarely go for dessert but was quite happy to sip my expresso whilst my guest pondered long and hard over whether to have the peach and almond tart. With no decision reached and a cursory look round to see that most of our fellow diners had departed as it was approaching 11pm, I requested the bill and inspected the damage.

Our meal for two, with wine, coffee and 12.5% service charge came to a very reasonable £79. It was only after the tab was settled that Katy returned to our table with a slice of peach and almond tart and two forks. “There’s only two slices left and I know you were tempted so you have this one and I’m going to save the final slice as a treat for when I finish my shift,” our waitress said with a smile.

It’s service like that which will keep me returning to Andrew Edmunds all year round and sets London’s restaurants apart, in my view, from those anywhere else in the world.

I took my husband for a quiet dinner a deux on a Friday night (23 April 2010) as we arrived at the restaurant we were greeted by friendlky but slightly frazzled staff who said our table woukld be ready in 15 minutes. We went across teh street to Wells and Fernandez and enjoyed some sherry and tapas there. We returned to the restaurant and were seated downstairs which was a bit tight for a 6 foot 1 man. However we carried on, knees knocking, The waiter was excellent and able to recommend some delicious wines and some of the highlights of the menus. We decided to share a starter – little did we know the portions are so generous.
We struggled with our delicious mains (lamb shank and rolled pork) I couldnt even contemplate pud.
Overall it was a lovely, quaintly romantic spot and reminded me of dining out as a student. Real hearty portions and lashings of fabulous red wine.
The bill was a pleasant surprise – it's not often you say that in Soho!

From the person who took the phone booking and offered a two hour early evening slot to the service through the meal this was a thoroughly unfriendly experience that left our party feeling cheated out of what should have been a good Saturday night meal. While the food was perfectly decent and the wine good, the staff seemed concerned only with the table that was booked after ours, twenty minutes before our slot was up (and that's how it felt) we were told to order pudding even though one of us had not finished their main course. We then ordered to find strangely that every hot pudding – treacle tart, sticky toffee pudding, apple crumble was suddenly not available – we're talking here of a 8:45pm. Instead we were offered dishes that would clearly have taken less time for us to eat and so ensure we were off our table at 9 sharp. We felt totally rushed and unwelcome and we would strongly recommend only going to this restaurant on a later sitting to ensure you're actually able to enjoy it. Vile attitude from the maitre d' down to the phone guy. Reminds me of all the things I hate about London.

Despite the fact that we were there early on a Sunday evening, the service was surprisingly bad. A few co-workers recommended , since we were entertaining friends from New York. After that evening, they had the impression that good service must not be required for a place to be popular in London.

Our waiter got our drink order wrong twice, not once. He also did not really have a clue about the wine list. But he get annoyed when I pointed out that he was trying to service a different year of the wine he had ordered, without asking us first. The food is average to poor and is only outdone by the terrible service. Overall, not a place that I would return to nor recommend.

Dissapointing. Perhaps it was my expectation that let it down having read great reviews and walked past the ever-packed bistro style restaurant on Lexington St, but I would most definitely not go back. Willing to forgive the offer of ‘ I suppose we could get you a drink’ as we were very slightly early for our table, the meal was distinctly average and accompanied by a very long (45 minute) wait. Starters were good, a nice ham terrine and tuna sashimi – but the mains were distinctly average (a very fatty, dry, salty un-crispy confit of duck) . Mains are between £15-20 which, in my opinion, isn't good value for the quality. The staff's knowledge of what was a very good wine list was another dissapointment – as was the half an hour wait for the bill as all the waiting staff seemed to dissapear.

We sat downstairs so perhaps the upstairs experience is different, but my expectation was good, solid, unpretentious cooking accompanied by a great atmosphere and personal service which was far from what we received. At least the atmosphere was good, since we were in there for two and a half hours for two courses. Such a shame.

Booked a week before, then reconfirmed having been rung that day. Arrived and some young guy half greeted us saying “sit were you can find a space”, and then turned his back on us and wandered off. We got a seat picked up the menu and after 15 minutes were still waiting to be served. We left! Hope others have better experiences but I wont be going back. p.s Its tiny and stinks of food!