Gastro

Love this restaurant – just so very very French! Reserved a table post cinema (it's right opposite the Clapham Picturehouse) last Saturday for dinner which was a good move as the place was packed. My friend and I got to sit at the back on the large country kictchen style table which we shared with a number of strangers – including some Frenchies. All good fun and wonderfully informal. It's all about just enjoying the food and atmosphere here.
Ordered the bavette steak with frites and had a spinach side order, all of which I found to be delicious – some people might find the cut of beef (bavette is also known as flank steak) too tough but I really rather like it. The frites were superb.

Couple of downsides unfortunately. Waiter, whilst very lovely and helpful on most fronts was totally ignorant of the wine list and couldn't offer any suggestions – he hadn't tried any on the list! Also, for some reason the restaurant was incredibly warm last Saturday. I was fortunately not dressed up too warmly but my friend was wilting visibly before my eyes. In the end we finished the last of our wine at the front of the restaurant near the exit so we could get some air.

Despite really enjoying the food I've not rated it very highly, purely because this really isn't a fine dining restaurant – just good French fare in cozy relaxed surroundings. I shall be returning…naturellement.

This restaurant was one of the worst restaurants I have ever been to. Please do not go to this restaurant. The food is absolutely horrendous. We ordered Moules Frites (something you would think you can't really get wrong…) the mussels were old, grainy and generally disgusting. The fries were soggy and undercooked. We had 2 glasses of wine, both were of a very poor quality and served in a water glass. The waitstaff were very rude to the point of just generally ignoring us, whilst they flirted among themselves. This place is a MUST miss. Don't waste your money.

The Gastro which I can only presume is popular because it is opposite the Clapham Picture House, and provides a ‘chinzy’ atmosphere, provided me on January 5th 2010 with one of the worst plates of food I've eaten.
The red wine I received was very nice, if somewhat expensive, but the CrabCake and Salad was bad.
Firstly, I found a long hair in the cake, but like an idiot did'nt keep it to show the staff. It is so dark in the restaurant that it was hard to see the hair except for the food attached to it. I then realised, after eating 2/3rds of the cake that it smelled ‘very high’ and informed the waitress/manager that I was concerned that I might get ill as I had eaten most of the dish before realising the smell was not good. I also told her about the hair and the dish of frites tasting like they had been cooked several times(blanched then fried and fried again?).
She did apologise but suggested I had told her before eating most of the dish. She did not offer any other compensation, ie a drink on the house, or something.
I have since asked friends who have eaten at Gastro, and their experience of the food was not good and one said she doesn't know how they get away with such bad food. I realise that this may be too scathing for you to consider a good review, but it is my honest opinion and experience.
I shall be renaming Gastro: GastroEnteritis!

A restaurant that loves itself. And loves fleecing customers.

This determinedly old-style French bistro believes it is far better than it is. Its attitude to customers seem to be that they should be grateful for being allowed to step through its doors to be treated like merde by the arrogant staff.
The food is pretty run-of-the mill fare, pushed out at high prices. Plus, you should be prepared for a long wait to get it, particularly on busy nights, when the kitchen seems unable to cope. On our last visit (on a Saturday night with a group of six), we had wrong dishes, forgotten side orders, main courses arriving at wildly different times and under-cooked (to the point of being almost raw and hard) vegetables. And not a single apology.
On a previous visit we ordered a bottle of £20 white wine. The waiter told us they had run out and recommended a replacement. We accepted his advice, enjoyed the wine and polished off a second bottle. Imagine our surprise (and anger) when the bill arrived, to discover the wine was £45 a bottle. The waiter's recommendation was more than twice what we expected to pay. No mention had been made of that at the time, so we had assumed his suggested alternative was the same price as our first choice. We felt we had been seriously cheated.
If the food were better, and the prices more reasonable, this place might be worth putting up with. As it is, you can be sneered at, ignored and patronised far more cheaply in other establishments.

Arrived at 8pm , got our second ( very mediocre course) at 10pm.5 people £220 not including service.I recently flew BA to Milan, stayed two nights in a good hotel and saw a game at the San Siro for only a bit more. Enough said.