Hunan

We have been to this restaurant on a couple of occasions and each time the food had been superb. Both times we opted for the chef selection menu and the variety and quality and presentation has been truly brilliant. True, the restaurant decor is stuck in the 80's and if the restaurant wasn't full then it may be lacking in atmosphere but if you are a foodie then this won't disappoint.

The four of us enjoyed a good meal at Hunan's yesterday evening.
That is the good part.
What we didnt like was the fact that the moment we sat down we were not given a choice whatsoever. We were only asked whether we were allergic to anything, when we said no they proceeded at quite a speed to present us with delicious food, lots and lots of it . So much so that we had to ask them to stop. Then we were presented with the bill of £200 (incl.a bottle of wine).
Not only is the price far too high but the bill was presented in a non itemised ( in chinese)way so we had to remind them we didnt have the full menue- £25 was taken off for one round for 4 which didnt seem enough).

We knew Hunan doesn't present a menue as such what we didnt know was that no price was given at the beginning and how much we would get without asking for it!
We all dine out a lot and live in the area but £50 a head is completely over the top without a choice!

i used to come to this restaurant with my family in the late eighties and early nineties. we always loved it. i moved away and i did not return until tonight. my wife booked a table several weeks ago. we picked the hunan because we were meeting a friend of mine, who is a director and a partner in one of the pimlico green companies, and so it was most easy for her to join us – and while i had not been to the hunan for a decade, at least, my friend told me it was her favourite restaurant and it had only got better. she told that there were no menus, they brought you a succession of delicious dishes, and the service was excellent. unfortunately, because my wife booked rather than my friend, the owners did not recognise the name so we were given a rather dreadful table upstairs. the food was delicious – but only arrived after chronic prompting – and arrived in tiny samples. the food was good (rather than excellent) – but the service was terrible – our service was overseen by a woman (apparently chinese) who seemed to think we had no idea about chinese food. after a series of annoying discrepancies and extremely sparse offering the evening was (finally, and completely) ruined when we were presented with crispy duck rather than sliced duck. anyone who is familiar with the difference between… 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.