Hunan

i have been going here all my life, without a shadow of a doubt my favorite chinese restaurant in london. the owner recognises us whenever we go in even if we havent been in a year. no menu is necessary, he just asks us what sort of things we want then brings out many small dishes for us to work our way through. im not a fan of regular chinese restaurants but this takes the cuisine to the next level.

The great thing about having no choice is that you get all sorts of things that you would otherwise not know to order; the food was excellent, the service much better than some seem to have experienced and the bill, whilst not cheap, not exactly what you'd call outrageous. Arriving for a late sitting, however, we were surrounded by a somewhat garrulous crowd; the raucous crowd on one side had the good grace to apologise, but the drunken kiwi slumped over our table on the other didn't seem to notice!

the service was terrible!
my issue is not with the food: it was good – what there was of it. there is no menu: you are asked how hungry you are: a little, quite or very. we said quite. my friend who goes there often said we would have course after course. they failed to appear. what did appear was very good but not nearly enough. and what food we did get we had to wait for hours, literally. for the final dish, supposed to be the main one, he offered us SLICED duck (which takes 24 hours to prepare) rather than CRISPY duck, which is standard fare. as a reviewer of asian restaurants i am sure you know the difference. he was able to offer us the sliced because a table downstairs had cancelled last moment. he offered it to us after admitting that we had not been given the proper food… when it arrived it was crispy duck. the waiter preparing it with his two forks refused to accept that we had been offered sliced duck. we all sat there stating, again and again, that this was not sliced duck, etc. he carried on preparing it, refusing to meet our gazes, saying quietly, ‘really?’, ‘oh?’ and just ignoring us. finally i got hold of anotehr waiter and asked for the manager. he arrived and took the dish away immediately and admitted the mistake. but it was not a mistake: that much was painfully obvious… More

I'm a big fan of the menu-less concept of just having dishes coming in now and then. At Hunan, these have always been of very high quality and I'm consistently pleased with the food. However, I've been with a group of people as well as a couple and the former is more suitable than the latter since the atmosphere is something you'll have to create yourself. Unfortunately, the decor is quite boring and outdated and could use some care as well. On a final, slightly negative note, the service has occasionally been a bit patchy but it usually delivers.

Having re-read this, the review might sound more negative than positive, but I would like to stress that the food definitely makes the place worth going to.