Gemma's review of The Botanist

A hot friday night in Sloane Square, a group of us went out for dinner and drinks at the Botanist. Usually for us its a place for a quick drink on the way home. Tonight we decided to step out for the evening and make it dinner as well. What a pleasant surprise we had.

The bar was packed the people all out in force drinking on the street frontage herded in by a lovely chap on the door. We went through to the restaurant and sat and were greeted by a lovely chap who was to be our waiter. He was showing a new waiter what to do, but still payed great attention to us.

A lovely gazpacho soup to start, one of my girlfriends had the duck egg which was interesting. Nice but not to my liking. To follow we had primavera rissotto, duck and bream. All dishes took a while to get to us but we were enjoying ourselves so it didnt matter much. For dessert we had the pimms jelly which we shared and it was divine! What a great idea for a dessert!

The cocktails from the bar were great, Victoria Pink and the raspberry collins were some of the best ive ever had. I dont know how they do it when they are that busy, But im glad they did it. You have to try the champagne coktails here very inventive, and a great use of floral aspects and home made spirit flavours.

Overall the staff were fantastic, friendly, very helpful with the menu and cocktails. Always one step ahead of our thoughts we had everything we needed. And so nice to see people enjoying their job which made us enjoy our evening so much more. The food was great… flavours lovely and made the simple dishes taste wonderful. One thing I would say is the dining room is very loud, even with the doors to the bar closed you couldnt have a converstaion without yelling. But hey, Its the weekend!!