We have been going to this great local Japanese restaurant ever since it first opened and it continues to impress. Although the tables and chairs are a little spartan, the welcome is very warm and the quality of the food is outstanding. Our most successful meals here have been when we have simply asked to be brought whatever the staff suggest (although we now have a list of favourite dishes which we make sure they include!). We can highly recommend the crispy squid with chilli, the dragon rolls, the Wow salad, all the tempura dishes, the black cod, the sea bass sashimi, the grilled aubergine and the various grilled steaks…we haven't had a disappointing dish here. It is also a great place to go for a quick meal on the spur of the moment – there is a good selection of bento boxes for those who haven't the energy to choose anything themselves. The wine list is unexciting but then Japanese food does not really lend itself to accompanying wine and you are better off sticking to other drinks anyway. We have never had any trouble at all getting a table and the bill is always a very pleasant surprise – highly recommended.

A hard week at work means that Friday night is either “too tired to think straight” or “right, let's GO for it…”. Trekking across town to Hawksmoor on Commercial St this week we got a masterclass in how to have one's mindset transformed from the former to the latter: an unhesitating 10 out of 10 all round. What a find.
Atmosphere: an oasis of dark wood and animated buzz, a rather upmarket haven from the surrounding pubs and bars. Cocktail waiters who clearly know what they are doing (and are having a ball) make up sublime concoctions on the spot – the cocktail menu is worth a read for some of the unusual and interesting offerings, and at around £8 each the pricing is spot on. Excellent service at the bar and from the staff who took the trouble to come over and let us know that our table was ready but to take as long as we liked.
Food: it is worth reading the information on their website before going, it is highly informative and gives you an indication of just how seriously they take their meat. It's all British (hooray!) and they have given a lot of thought to the cuts, the cooking, and the accompaniments. There is a very useful article about matching wines to the different cuts and the recommendations are not necessarily what you would expect.
It is also worth reading the menu, especially the drinks menu, which has some hilarious and truly unusual and interesting finds.
A number of larger cuts are available and are indicated by weight on boards, crossed off once they have been ordered. Staff were helpful in giving advice and recommendations.
We ordered salad starters which were outstandingly good: broad bean, peas and ticklemore cheese, and a divine tomato salad with tomatoes which tasted home grown. Steaks were absolutely divine. Beautifully cooked and seasoned, exactly as requested, and utterly delicious. Chips were fabulous, as were the sides and sauces. Puddings were all interesting, the brownie with salted caramel ice cream was divine.
We absolutely loved it. We will tell all our friends. By the end of the evening we were mentally making a note of all the other people we could go there with…they got everything right. We were thinking “Let's GO for it!!! Again!!!”

Well. When I sat down to write this review (having given myself a few hours to calm down) I did look at the one other review on this site and have permitted myself a raised eyebrow and a loud cough.
We walked through the outside area before being seated: there was a large board advertising Bar Snacks such as “chips cooked in beef dripping with mayonnaise: £3.50 per portion”.
My daughter ordered a steak with chips (as advertised on the restaurant menu). I ordered the half lobster with salad and then made the fatal mistake of asking for a portion of chips to have with it.
“no, we don't do chips as a side order”. Not easily dissuaded (I am, I believe, a paying customer…) I queried this. After all, they clearly serve chips! I actually don't eat chips very often…just very very occasionally…like…when I have lobster: you see, I like chips with lobster…The very pleasant waitress assured me that she was under strict instructions from the chef to refuse to allow diners to order chips as a side order. It was simply not possible. They only had chips to go with the steak.
How absolutely extraordinary.
I then had the temerity to ask her to check with somebody in charge.
She did.
She came back and told me with a smile that it was DEFINITELY not possible. Well we felt absolutely marvellous by this time – well done Clissold Arms.
New cutlery was brought for the main course and the waitress delivered each knife to us by sticking her fingers all over the blades. Lovely. The wine was too expensive to be served in thick glasses.
Once our main course was delivered we couldn't catch a waiter's eye for love nor money.
It took us over 45 minutes to pay and leave.
I do hope the management at this pub/restaurant are able to take a long hard look at themselves and consider where they might be going wrong. We want to go to local restaurants, we would much prefer to spend our money locally than go further afield. But this is simply not acceptable.
We won't return.

I am puzzled by the rave reviews this rather bland restaurant seems to attract. We booked on the back of them but all four of us were left scratching our heads. It was “OK” and that is really the best word I can find to describe it. Food was fresh but lacked zing, and there wasn't very much of it. We had the pre-theatre menu: a salad of herring and new potatoes was pretty but didn't taste of much, a fricassee of orecchetti and spring vegetables was a very meagre tablespoon-full of pasta stir fried with some broccoli, cauliflower, broad beans and almonds with a few flakes of parmesan and that didn't taste of much either. The pear on the pear and chocolate tart had been sitting in the sun awhile and the guinness ice cream had a rather unpleasant bitter taste. Oh dear. The chocolates with the coffee were nice and the coffee was good. Service was hit and miss. The view is lovely, we agree, but I am not sure that you can rate a restaurant solely on the view, the food and the service would be more important to me. It depends what you are looking for: Skylon is safe but is not going to set your pulse racing.

We had heard much about this restaurant and had been trying to get in for months. We had almost given up but decided to accept the Monday night we were offered after our umpteenth phone call. It was packed. Gripe: we were offered a table for 7.45pm but told that we would have to give it back after two hours. OK…(not really…) but then don't keep us standing by the door for nearly ten minutes, and then ignore us for another ten minutes when we sit down. Hmmm. BUT…we forgave everything because the food was fantastic. Really fantastic. Extraordinary salad of celeriac, radish, pomegranate and truffle oil. Carpaccio of lamb with peppery pecorino. Tagliatelle with pigeon and pork ragu. Haven't had anything like any of these dishes anywhere in London, all were outstanding. Bitter almond granita with chocolate sorbet – divine. The room was buzzing, delighted munching everywhere. It's a small room and they have squeezed as many tables as could possibly be considered polite into the space. Great eavesdropping. Best of all – the idea of having every dish as a small or large plate – genius. So you can have three or four small plates…or a large one to share…brilliant. And a very very reasonable bill. And a superb Italian wine list. But the manager looked utterly harrassed. The staff were good, there just weren't enough of them. The manager, on finally bringing the bill (after quite a lot of waiting…) did ask if everything had been OK which impressed me, because he did actually listen to what we said. Bocca di Lupo is an excellent restaurant serving outstanding food but it needs to be very careful indeed not to overstretch itself. More staff and less packing in the punters would make this dining experience one worth fighting to get into. Londoners are fickle, I hope they are able to get it right because it's worth it.

An exceptional restaurant and on the two occasions I have visited I would rate this as one of the top dining experiences in London.
A muted room with well spaced tables, the atmosphere improves like a good wine as the meal progresses. Clearly everybody around you is enjoying the experience.
Service is the best type – attentive, unobtrusive, warm and friendly, staff are well briefed and clearly enjoying their roles, they showed pride in the cooking and the restaurant.
The food is beautiful, and delicious. Inventive touches abound. Flavours are strong and elegantly combined. On Saturday evenings the chef's tasting menu provides ample opportunity for imaginative flair. We had no idea what our dessert was and were invited to guess. What looked like a delicate slice of lemon tart turned out to be white asparagus with white chocolate ice cream – an extraordinary idea which really worked. Other tables were served different dishes.
A confident kitchen, a great place to go for a special occasion, an oustanding restaurant.

Orso is quite simply my favourite restaurant in London. What's not to like?
It doesn't need to brag – it hides itself away in a secret basement in Covent Garden. Don't, as some seem to, hover outside wondering if it's worth taking a look downstairs – it is.
Service is always friendly and nothing is ever too much trouble. We go there frequently, outside peak times we never need to book and there is always, magically, a table – even when the place is heaving.
The staff know their stuff, the Service is slick and efficient, but warm and friendly at the same time. This is the place for pre and post theatre dining, and they know how to make sure the timing is always right to allow for this.
There is a very good value pre-theatre menu. The regular menu changes daily with a number of favourites always on offer. I would probably describe the food as modern rustic italian if there is such a thing – the fresh pasta and risottos are superb. Everything is served on mismatched colourful crockery and the atmosphere is always buzzing.
Orso gets everything right, I can't fault it. There are many trendier and more expensive restaurants which just don't have the same feelgood factor as this one, which is why I'm giving it 10 for everything!

If you have never eaten Richard Corrigan's food I would thoroughly recommend you give it a try. If you have, then you will need no prompting to make your way to his eponymous Mayfair restaurant. He is clearly passionate about his food and his heritage, this shines through on the plate. All the food we had was excellent, some of it was outstanding.

The overall impression is warm and welcoming. Staff make an effort to open doors, stand aside for you to pass, smile and greet you as you come and go. These things matter a lot and they get them right. The room is beautifully lit, lots of candles, dark blue leather and dark wood, lovely for a winter evening. Attention has been paid to the details – cutlery, glasses, linen.

The service is possibly rather inexperienced but trying hard and that means you can forgive them a lot. Our waiter was probably the campest I have ever come across and his infectious enthusiasm made the evening highly enjoyable. Staff bringing the food, however, seemed slightly unsure as to who was meant to have what. The Sommelier, although asked for, didn't appear, and although we got the bottle of champagne we ordered, we weren't given any canapes.

Knowledge of the food should have been better – the chef has clearly taken a lot of trouble over provenance and season, it would have been good if the staff could have shown that they understood this. I asked the waiter to choose between two fish dishes and would have appreciated an answer which described something about them, not just “have that one”. Bread is excellent and is replenished without prompting, tap water was brought chilled and with enthusiasm but glasses should have been refilled without having to be asked.

Although the menu appears initially rather dauntingly heavy, the cooking has a deftness of touch and is beautifully balanced. Wild smoked salmon was notable and accompanied by light as a feather beignets of deep-fried goats cheese, the creaminess of which perfectly complemented the richness of the salmon. Flavours are bold, textures are well contrasted and intelligently thought through. Chips, fried in goose fat, were exceptional – perfectly browned and crisp on the outside, meltingly soft within. Star of the evening was rhubarb souffle served with creme anglais and ginger ice cream – the intense rhubarb flavour countered by a gorgeously crunchy crust which was instantly reminiscent of the best rhubarb crumble you ever tasted, and then contrasted with the tangy acidity of the stem ginger ice cream. Heaven.

The bill was surprisingly reasonable for the location.

We had a very disappointing meal at York and Albany, mostly because of the poor service. We were barely greeted on arrival, and were led to a table in the circular upstairs dining room. This has a strange layout, with the tables around the outside of the room, apart from a poor couple who had to sit bang in the middle of the room facing the entrance, so it must have felt as if everybody was looking at them. Our table for four was next to a door which led to the wine store. This meant that every few minutes a waiter went through the door, giving us a blast of cold air. We were totally ignored for the next ten minutes – no menus, no offer of a drink. We had been looking forward to a glass of champagne while perusing the menu but we were unable to attract anybody's attention. This is, in my book, a cardinal restaurant sin and it set the flavour for the whole evening. Eventually we managed to order our drinks, and they were lovely when they came, but it was too late.

We found the menu disappointing. There was nothing that we felt we wanted to eat – pollack, neck of lamb, couscous…we had trouble finding anything that excited us. We settled for a rich cassoulet and the fish with couscous, both of which were fine but just not outstanding. Service continued to be inattentive to the point of rudeness. We ordered a bottle of wine, but had to pour it ourselves the entire evening. It didn't arrive until we had finished our starters. Plates were whisked away as soon as we had finished.

We were brought a little box of toffee popcorn with our coffee – a strange touch which was presumably meant to be amusing but it just didn't taste very nice, and left us feeling rather bemused.

We were particularly looking forward to the “legendary” Gordon Ramsay service – we were disappointed. Smiles and attentiveness cost nothing and make a huge difference to people's experience. We will not return.