The River Café

Italian classic in London. Always packed and buzzing. If you don't want to drive all the way out to hammersmith (or struggle to get a table) you can also go to theo randall who used to be head chef there and now has his own place offering very much the same great food offering

I barely recognised this restaurant from the critic's review of it, and overall it's a big disappointment on several key grounds.

First, diners are packed in like sardines into a crowded space with tables and other people's chairs almost touching yours.

Second, paper table cloths?

Third, the food is good but really nothing special, nothing outstanding, nothing surprising, no nice touches, almost just dumped on the plate.

We visited here for dinner, wanting to compare it to the other three michelin places we'd been to in the last few weeks (Corton, Cafe Boulud, Kitchen W8). Well, it was a big disappointment because the food was just… ordinary… nothing special, and we've had better in regular Italian restaurants in central London.

I'm sure it will be packed most nights as it has a strong media and “I love the cookbook” following – but we found it over-hyped, over-priced for what ends up on the plate, noisy, indifferent services and absolutely not in the same league as any other Michelin star places we've eaten in.

Resting on its laurels, relying on faded glory about sums it up.

Big disappointment.

Every time I go, I'm ever so slightly disappointed by the lack of atmosphere at the River Café. The staff are lovely – helpful and attentive, without being “in your face”. The food is consistently good (though the chocolate pudding is always a little ordinary). I find it quite expensive, given that it doesn't feel that special on dark nights, but I keep going back which is testament to the overall quality of a meal there, and it certainly feels like a lovely treat every time.

I had lunch with my family on Saturday 23rd May.

A fairly expensive restaurant with such a good reputation and winner of awards, etc. should know better. …

For £80 per head, I'd like a proper table cloth and not a paper one (and please spare me the ‘environmentally conscious speech’ because it's a lie: the only reason is to save money). Similarly, you don't want to have so many tables close together that it makes difficult for guests (and waiters) to walk across the room. The feeling is that you are dining in a very expensive canteen.

This is not the experience one would expect from a restaurant boasting Michelin-star rating

The food is good, but nowhere near as good as it used to be. The vitello tonnato is supposed to taste of tuna, otherwise it should not be called as such. Perhaps Mrs. Rodgers could pay more visits to this establishment and go back to basics?

On the positive side, our waitress was really good

Overall, I don't think I'll go back any time soon. London offers so much better

Probably the best restaurant I have eaten at in London. Fabulous room, very bright and airy (we went for lunch) with a very buzzy atmosphere, both from the clientèle, and also from watching the bustling staff in and out of the open kitchen. Yet at the same time very relaxing, and the sort of place I would have loved to while the afternoon away at. The food was spot on Italian. Very fresh, fabulous flavours and well presented. Plus the most amazing almond tart, where the texture was as divine as the taste.
Service was friendly and very efficient, though hardly surprising as they had oodles of staff.
One small gripe was a couple of the tables (especially by the pillars) were very crammed in, but as it wasn't full we were able to select a better table.
You certainly have to pay up for such perfection, but I certainly didn't begrudge a penny.

One of the best restaurants in London offering great italian cooking in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. Very good service and good value for money considering the very high standard of food and service.
Great for Sunday lunch.

I have been here many times now, mostly for lunch, but occasionally on an evening too. There is something very unique about the River Café – perhaps it centres on their choice of ingredients and their simple philosophy with food, but you can always guarantee a tasty, well-presented meal within a lovely ambience.

Being “Easties”, we rarely travel this far west for a meal. Our previous visit had been about 5yrs before, but we felt that a return visit was needed. A good decision. Our late summer mid week long lunch was possibly our most enjoyable meal of 2011. As others have mentioned, the riverside location and large glass wall make it ideal for lunch. Having read them afterwards, I was very surprised by some of the very negative reviews. A complete contrast to our own experience, which was hard to fault.

Food style: Standard Italian style choices, with a focus on seasonal, fresh and simple. All our dishes had super high quality ingredients, and were wonderfully simple and delicious. No pretension, just high quality dishes in good “man sized” portions. Some may not like the lack of design or style in how the food is presented on the plate, but to me this is all a part of the focus on the food not the fripperies.

Since we liked the sound of so many dishes, we decided to go for the “full Italian”: Starter, pasta, main & dessert + lots of wine. Oddly enough, we didn't feel like eating anything that evening ! We had beautifully fresh grilled squid and sardines, followed by excellent al dente pasta ribbons with new season porcini mushrooms. Couldn't fault. This was followed by a lovely large piece of delicious hake and a good size lean and very tasty / gamey new season grouse. Staff very kindly warned us about the gamey taste – but that was exactly what I wanted. One of the most tender and tasty grouse I've eaten in 2011. All topped off by a wonderfully fresh English fruit summer pudding.

Atmosphere: Bustling and relaxed, no background music, and not too noisy (high ceiling must help). Ideal for lunch. Incredibly busy, and not just politicians on PR expenses – what downturn ?

Service: Informal (sometimes the staff actually seemed to be enjoying themselves !!) but professional. Could be perfunctory rather than friendly. Generally not pretentious or arrogant, which can be a big problem in such successful places. Questions were answered properly, and we weren't rushed at all. Pretty good, but could be better at this price.

Pricing: Certainly a bit toppy, but high quality ingredients are not cheap. The informal service, decor and atmosphere may lead you not to expect Locatelli or Zafferano type pricing ? Anyway, our fantastic 3hr lunch cost us about £300, including a lot of drink. To benchmark, 2 courses for 2 inc service ex all drinks worked out at £115. Great value. More generally, Starters were £15-£20, Pasta circa £20, Mains £30-£40.

We will definitely be back. For me, The River Cafe is now my Italian version of Hix in Clerkenwell. We deliberately went for a mid-week lunch, since I wasn't sure how different our experience would be on a busy weekend, with the locals and their over indulged children ?! I think that it was a good call.

Go for a 7pm booking; watch the theatre come alive. For that is what it is. Pure theatre. Well, between that and a sleek liner. It was our first time, and of course the history is all part of the atmosphere; we were pretty thrilled to be there. Try to get a table near the oven – cooking area – No, it’s not hot. Rebuilt and redesigned after a fire a few years ago, it works as a modern statement.

A glass of Prosecco is a six quid, a good accompaniment to studying the menu. This was a very generous birthday gift voucher [hint, fab present] so we didn’t have to worry too much about the prices but even so, they are steep. Staff and tables fill up fast. Last Friday evening we were ‘blessed’ [?] with the entry of the big boss Richard Rogers and wife, effusively greeting the table of Italians next to us, then slipping out before most diners had realised… You feel you are in a very special place; you try not to stare in case you recognise an A-lister who doesn’t want to be stared at.

Enter the service, stage – well, from every direction. We’d been asked to ‘vacate our table by 9pm’. More their problem than ours, we thought, so we didn’t rush with the choosing. This takes ages anyway, and then there’s the wine list, gulp – Puglia is really the best value. I counted five different smiling young waiting staff pausing by our table with this and that before the first course arrived. It didn’t seem rushed, though the large projected clock in the cooking area – all open view – kind of draws you to its bright face to check how you are doing. Watching the cooking and the ‘service’ is fun – the organisation, for us, worked well.

So to the food. Comparing one Michelin star River Cafe with one Michelin star smart French [Chenonceaux, July this year] is not a good idea. Beauty on a plate is not the scene at River Cafe, or in Italy, and it took me a while to get round that one. It really needed to be the flavours that would win here, and they didn’t disappoint, though I hadn’t realised that both my starter and main had the same beans; I think I would have pointed that out to a punter. You really do have to take time with the eating to separate it all out and savour the flavours. Then you need the menu again to remind yourself of all the bits…

What we had: starters – him: perfectly seared scallops round the edges, me: a bit of a ‘mess on a plate’ of the beans and chargrilled courgettes but the taste was divine. Shared: small plate of rabbit pasta – why do we always overcook pasta at home? Mains: me chargrilled marinated lamb, more beans, him: grouse. We tasted each others of course. I couldn’t single out one particular element that was a taste experience over and above the rest, but the whole effect was comforting, country, generous, unsophisticated.

I’m curious as to why the description of the food has come at the end of this review, perhaps saving the best till last? Difficult to say but, like a good piece of theatre, the River Cafe is the complete collection of scenes, characters, actors, text … all well rehearsed, well directed and doing a great job. You feel you are watching stars of the future rushing around; you probably are.

What recession? It was jam packed by the time we left around 9.30pm. Would we go again? Certainly, I didn’t even try the fish, but would need to save up! Book way ahead, and allow plenty of time to get there.

Having read the rather negative reviews so far, I feel compelled to write a more positive one about my visit yesterday. I ate at River Cafe a good few years ago and remember a simple, but utterly delicious experience. Knowing that restaurants can fade quite dramatically once the accolades start rolling in, there was always the risk that standards had fallen.

Arriving at our outside table on a glorious sunny, warm day, the tone was already set for a fabulous long, lazy lunch. If you are looking for fancy new techniques, ingredients, and fusion combinations, this is not the place for you. If you want excellent ingredients done well, then indulge yourself at the River Cafe. Undeniably the prices are high, but the antipasti are definitely good for 2-3 people sharing. The serving sizes are not stingy. And how many restaurants do you know in London that serve top quality filtered still or sparkling filtered water at £1.50 per pitcher with unlimited refills? And the olive oil for bread dipping was indescribably good. I am no olive oil fan, but this stuff was peppery and full bodied without being cloying and over-powering. But now onto the food…

We started with the Scottish langoustines split and wood-roasted with garlic and parsley. Fresh, juicy and tasty. I found myself sucking every last remnants from it. Then followed with the linguine with Devon crab, fennel herb, lemon and dried chilli. Again, seafood this fresh, does not need much done to it. There was plenty of crab – white and brown – to give it a satisfying kick.

My main was the chargrilled marinated leg of lamb with salsa verde and verdura mita of aubergines, zucchini and peppers. The lamb was tender with distinctive taste of the grill. When meat arrives more cooked than I usually like, it is usually a bad sign. Not here. I could cut through it like a piece of fine fillet.

Our table indulged in share desserts of chocolate nemesis, which a flourless chocolate cake that the Italians do so well, and almond tart with victoria plums. The latter was particularly good. Parts was soft with ripe and oozy plums, parts extra crispy that complemented the creme fraiche beautifully.

Fearing we had not quite hit the peaks, we ordered piece of gorgonzola and was not let down. Strong and creamy, it proved that sometimes one is quite enough if it is good enough.

With regards the service, it was that curious mixture of professional and attentive, yet decidedly informal. The staff had a happy shift feel about it. How many restaurants in this price category do you know would have their staff lunch within view of their customers, and yet pull it off without it seeming weird?

I grant that the two times I have been, I have been blessed with great weather and ate outside in their great outdoor area. This does make it easier for the restaurant to please the customer.

One telling sign…we asked the staff if we could see the dinner menu (we had lunch) and – pointing at the nearby head chef nearby who was writing furiously – she said no because it had not yet been finalised and they had not been briefed. This means that the menu is changeable and reflective with what is in season. This probably does mean that sometimes not everything works out 100%, but I would take the risk.

Would I go again, absolutely yes!