Maggie's Reviews

I visited Barbecoa recently with my family and was left feeling a bit…underwhelmed.

On arrival we were ushered to the cloakroom where they took our coats and the receptionist told us that we had to vacate our table by 9pm, i generally dislike an ‘out time’ but tonight this was no problem as we were off to catch a show at 9.30pm. We were given a table looking out at St Paul's Cathedral and given menus. Being a family of meat eaters we got pretty excited by the thought of lamb leg steak, fillet steak and pulled pork shoulder.

Our waitress eventually came over half an hour later to our table to take a drinks order (i thought they wanted us to be out by 9pm?) and we ordered breads at the same time for fear of having to wait another half hour for service. The drinks and breads were brought to the table and a couple of minutes later our waitress popped back to the table to explain to us what the breads were…but not before cursing her colleague who obviously didn't do it for her. The breads were absolutely delicious and i had to stop myself from filling up on them as i wanted to save room for the main event – the meat! The kitchen is very impressive, you get a clear view right into it as you walk around the restaurant. Two of the biggest tandoori ovens i've ever seen – no wonder, for all of that yummy bread. The equipment is still all new and sparkly, obviously well looked after by Adam and his brigade.

For the first time ever all four of us ordered a different starter and main course to each other and i started with the beef tartare. It was an excellent choice and of course i couldn't resist dipping into my dad's calamari and my brother's ribs. My dad chose a Chateauneuf du Pape from the wine list which was divine and a perfect match with our mains. My fillet steak was slightly overcooked but saved by the fact that it was such a beautiful cut of meat and my dad's rump steak was a little under for his liking. Nonetheless the food was fantastic, and i would have expected nothing… More

I recently visited The Botanist on one of my friend's recommendations, she told me to be prepared to fight my way through some perfectly described ‘Sloane rangers’ sipping cocktails in the bar to get to the restaurant. She was right, with fighting gloves on we patiently navigated our way through the beautiful crowd to get to the dining room. We didn't make a booking but were lucky enough to be shown straight to a table.

The menu was different to the one that my friend had described to me but our waiter explained that it had recently changed to keep up with seasonal ingredients, something they do every two months. We were spoilt for choice and decided on each having different dishes so that we could share. The wine list was impressive and not as intimidating as they often can be, with the help of our waiter we chose a bottle of Argentinian Malbec which was very pleasant. To start we had cod cheeks and tongues (something i'd never even heard of before!) and a beef carpaccio. Both delicious. For mains we chose the lamb saddle and the venison loin. We congratulated ourselves on such a fine choice, and left our plates clean. We ended up finishing the evening with a wonderful selection of British cheeses. Service was great, attentive but not intrusive and we felt very looked after during our meal in an obviously busy restaurant.

The bar started to die down later on into the evening so we moved into the bar for a nightcap. The bar is very impressive feature at The Botanist and the bar team were busy making cocktails for the glamourous men and women who had perched themselves in front of them. It's definitely somewhere where i would recommend to my friends, i will be visiting again soon for cocktails with the girls.