Felix's Guide's Reviews

Novikov is rammed to the hilt not with Euro Trash but with Global Trash. It heaves new money not old money, Non-dom not dom, second wife not first wife, 80s boom not 2012 recession, decadence not restraint.

Bucket loads of Russian money has been poured into the refit and it works. The route down to the basement bar with the view of the Italian restaurant and wine racks to the right is impressive.

We ate in the Asian restaurant and the food was a little below Nobu/Zuma but not by a lot. The Dim Sums were especially well executive and I enjoyed the Chilian Sea Bass cooked as chunks of fillets rather than on the bone. The classic ‘Black cod’ at £35 was pricy, a little small but excellent.

The waitress was too keen to take me up the list – she recommend Dim Sum at £45 rather than any of the others at £9 and pushed very hard for us to ‘go to the market’ and pick out fish we wanted to eat – a sure fast bill-expander (we declined).

The worst thing is the very load piped music. It is almost impossible to hear anything in the downstairs bar – rather a pity but with 2 beers, glass of wine and non-alcoholic cocktail costing £40 it was a good excuse to leave. Even the restaurant has excessively load music – they simply don’t need it but I suppose if you are in the mating game it helps when conversation falters.

In short I think this is a great fun place – if you don’t play dumb with your choices from the menu then the price is not as bad as it could have been. We were £70 per head for great food, moderate service but atmosphere that gives you a fill-good factor. Sadly you then walk out of the door and realise the recession has not gone away.

Kettner's is certainly a wonderful building in the middle of Soho but you get the feeling this is either geared at tourists or parties. The main dining room is old fashioned with rather dirty looking carpets and school tables and chairs. The menu is club-like, to the extent that it is boring. There is nothing wrong with such a menu as long as the execution is good. Dover Sole should slide off the bone with little or no effort – my poor fish needed a chain saw to get the flesh off. Very poor indeed. In short at £10-£15 for mains you can do better else where and not a place for a regular restaurant-going Londoner.

Went last night for a 9.30 table – haven't been for a while and I had forgottem quite what a superb restaurant this is. My starter of the squid & mackerel burger with razor clams is a taste sensation that I will remember for a while. Followed by the saddle of rabbit which was superb. My only grip would be that the service tailed off a bit as we had the late table – I had to turn around several times to get the attention of waiters. But in short the quality of the cooking and the price point means that this restaurant gives you more bang for your buck than most establishments in town.

The other views are fair – both the negative and positive ones. A set menu of salad, steak frites and pudding. It is quick, almost too quick and too prepared. The salad was over dressed and dressed too early leading to wilted leaves. My rare steak was cooked correctly and when seconds arrive you can have pretty well as much as you want. The frites, in my opinion, should have been salted more but were classic ‘allumettes’. If you want a quick meal, where you do not even have to waste time looking at the menu, and the service is more 'gentlemen's club/Oxford College' than top restaurant, this is your place.

Situated in an old bank at the heart of the City this is a massive space to fill. I ate in the upstairs restaurant which looks over the street one side and the carvenous bar area the other.

A classic Green's (Mayfair) menu focusing on seafood / fish but with plenty of meat options. With us oysters preceeded simple, well presented dishes executed with good ingredients – fish and chips (folded, battered plaice, neat stack of chucky chips, mushy mint peas) and haddock, mash and poached egg. Puddings did not disappoint except that the Eton mess had too much cream and not enough bashed-up meringue. Prices pretty fair for that part of the City.

Wine list in price order (bit annoying) has a good amount in the sub £35 level. Service still beding in with some friendly, ‘English as a second language’, unexperienced staff. Management seem to know what they are doing and so should improve this with time.

The groundfloor bar is pretty empty at the moment but hopefully will fill up. There is a rather odd raised private dining area in the bar which I doubt will work – better for pole dancers or a band. Two better, glassed fronted private rooms in the main restaurant.

All in all a brave move that I hope succeeds.

Oh what a disappointment. I love Zuma so much and was wanting the same sort of execution, the same thought of style and the same ‘out of the box thinking’ but all I got was a normal Italian with carpaccio, pastas and pizzas in an ‘OK’ basement. Whilst I understand that they are targeting executives from the nearby dreary Baker Street offices as opposed to the beautiful Chelsea crowd, with pizzas at £12 you need to deliver a lot more. The service whilst keen is simply not trained. Multiple waiters and waitresses came to our table asking the same thing or removing or replacing items (sugar for coffee came and went twice). I’m afraid it is the bar at Alloro for me any time or to sum it up…I would walk over mountains for Zuma but just a block for Il Baretto.

This has always been an awkward room for a restaurant – Petrus only just got away with it. Brasserie St Jacques has ripped out the formal features and fittings and replaced them with a rather artifical Parisian brasserie interior – you get the feel that the designer has read the books but never been to Paris. The orange 'effect' makes for a rather sterile atmosphere.

The menu has all the old favourites that you would expect from a brasserie menu (steak chips, Dover sole, steak tartare, creme brulee etc ) and to a large extent delivers OK on quality when the food arrives. But prices reflect the location rather than the quality – it's a posh cafe rouge in a posh part of town. Doesn't have the buzz of Galvin Bistrot de Luxe which, to me, is a great top end brasserie where you want to have a long winter business lunch finishing at about tea time when it has got dark already.

I just do not get why Sake No Hana has got a following from some celebs – it taking a space that has never really worked for restaurants, you have to go up in an escalator to the room and then down in a lift to the loos! Avoid the sunken seats if you do not want to take your shoes off or suffer backache.

New Japanese restaurant are in a difficult position as they are immediately compared with Zuma or Nobu – while Sake No Hana tries to deliver more traditional Japanese dishes I don't think it beats them for an overall experience. Or maybe it is just that I prefer the 'modern' twist to Japanese food. Service at the beginning was decidedly average but I hear it has improved now. Very expensive – probably just geared at Russians.