Which hyped restaurants have you found underwhelming?

[Kickinthenostalgia]

Went to happy restaurant london today and I just didn’t get the hype. It was okay as far as restaurants go, but I just found it a little underwhelming considering the hype it gets. DP, DS and my sister absolutely love it, they’ve been about 4 times, dd has been twice, she told me she prefers hard rock and tbh I have to agree with her.
what restaurant hypes did you find underwhelming?.

Me too. My parents adore it. For me it’s just not worth the journey from the other side of London and the food was nothing memorable

We ended up not paying at Hoppers, the food was ok but the service was beyond horrible and they tried to get us in and out in about 25 minutes.

sushi samba was awful, just full of people taking photos for instagram and posing. Food was ok ish but nothing to get excited about

It was so underwhelming

Skylon - total rip off.

Oxo tower. I thibk its less raved about now but 15 odd years ago it was all the rage and I kept getting invited to work.dinners there - noth brasserie and restaurant - and it was always so average.

Had lunch there about 5 years ago and nothing had changed.

As a south african, I couldn't tell you why there's hype about nandos in England but I can say we all love it because it's well cooked chicken, with a good marinade and more interesting sides than is usual. But I do hard agree - chips awful. Not much better back home either. You are always better off choosing other sides!

Agree about the Ivy. The Winchester one is very popular, but the food is average. I only go there if someone else books it for a birthday, or other occasion. I had a really diluted curry there once, and I’d just been given it to overhear the next table being told they’d run out of curry. I then realised exactly why it was so diluted, ie. thin and a bit flavourless!

Nando’s is nasty and the style of service where you order at the bar and get bits for yourself is just yuk.

Rick Stein is very regular - Winchester and Poole. I expected something really fresh and a bit special @ £26 for fish and chips, but it tasted just like my local chippy @ £10.

Another one for Mowgli. I had been to first one on Bold Street, Liverpool a few times and when we were in Leeds I had been bigging it up to a friend so we went there for dinner. What a disappointment, the food was awful, the rice was the worst I have ever come across in a restaurant, my friends lamb chops were tougher than tough and in the end we gave up eating and I called over the waiter. Explained nicely to him to him how bad it was and to look at the food. He looked and just said oh dear and went over to the person behind the desk then came back and apologised and said there would be no charge.
We left hungry after refusing any more food and ended up going across the road to Tesco and buying a sandwich.
I did go into the one at Cheshire Oaks and looked around at the food on the tables on left.

Ivy Oxford was awful. The one in Edinburgh is passable

Pig Hotels - too dark to see what you are eating for supper, everything is extra, service was slapdash , £££££ for the meal

The restaurant at The Gerkin, great location, interesting views, mediocre food, bored staff and over priced. This was in 2019, but I wouldn't risk it again...

Nisha adds sugar to so many of her curries. I still wonder why even though she insists it elevates the flavour.

I've eaten in Michelin restaurants a lot and we went for the chef's table. One course was a baked onion with ash on top. Nothing else. It had no flavour and the ash was unpleasant. Another dish was duck fat smeared on the plate with leaves on top. Neither had any flavour. They saw us as "stupid British people" and served us rubbish. Others who have eaten there had different experiences but our was deeply disappointing. Geranium on the other had was my best restaurant meal ever.

Our Six by Nico ( Edinburgh) used to be good, in fact so good it was difficult to get a table. One year their Christmas menu was so amazing I went three separate times. But then the menus all started to be very samey, each time you got some foamy concoction for the first course, meanwhile they started pushing the extra priced starters hard and inserting additional paid for dishes which spoilt the whole concept. Then they squeezed in more tables spoiling the whole experience. I won’t go back.

Cote used to be good, but never again after last visit over a year ago, the mussels tasted like they came from one of those bags you boil and the portion was tiny - mind you I wouldn’t have wanted more.

I must admit to liking The Ivy. They generally have some deal on so the food is pretty reasonable price wise and I’ve never had a bad meal. I like the decor.

I never saw what all the fuss was about with Wagamamas.

Love Tayyabs!

The River cafe

I had the shepherds pie at the Manchester branch- I agree!

Took my husband for his 60th. V underwhelming and overpriced. Service good but I prefer noble rot or Trinity. Think people go to be seen.

Take him to Trinity

Many years ago Aqua Shard, the food was okay, but not more - it was a work event for a colleague's retirement so my boss paid. We had some mash on the side and it was of the Smash variety

Another bad experience was at Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food. Pre-pandemic I'd always gone there for breakfast when I had early morning flights a few times a year as well as the occasional lunch.
The first time I went back after the pandemic was for breakfast and the manager had remembered me, we made small talk and he said it was "nice to see you again"

About four weeks later, I had an afternoon flight to get home for Christmas so I had lunch there. First half the items on the menu were sold out, which they didn't tell you until you had sat down and wanted to order. Had to wait ages to do that and then the steak was not available. Went for Fish & Chips and had to wait almost 30 minutes only to be served cold food. Had it returned and got tepid food back. By that time I had spent close to an hour in the restaurant. The table next to me had left five minutes after I arrived, their dirty dishes were still on the table when I left. The whole time the waiting staff were giving customers an attitude.
When I paid, I asked for the service charge to be taken off - first time I'd ever done that.
On the way out, the same manager from the previous visit asked me how my meal was so I told him - he immediately refunded me and apologised profusely. But for me, sadly, the damage was done, I haven't been back since.

TGI Fridays. Utter shite and yet it’s still packed every time I pass by.

The one in our town, closed down, people had voted with their feet and it was always empty.

I'm so pleased to see the hate for Mowgli 😂😂

I didn't think of mentioning it cause "underwhelming" is not my reaction... dark spaces with dim lighting and menus printed on beige card; old buildings with lots of hard surfaces and noise bouncing everywhere; weird seating options; rubbish menu choices. And to top it all off, a complete lack of naan breads - when everyone knows that naan breads are the work of the gods!! I have actually been three times (twice in Liverpool, one in Glasgow) because other people have booked. I have already decided that next time someone suggests it I'm being clear that there is NO WAY I'm going.

I love Dishoom's bacon naan for breakfast.
I love the £20 Ivy menu too - I wouldn't pay more though.

My underwhelmed menu was Galvin @ Windows. I went for my 30th birthday. The view and experience was the cost of the meal. The food was average at best.

The Fat Duck I left hungry and really just prefer non fancy food concoctions

Zuma it was nice but not fantastic

Dishoom nice but way over priced and there are much nicer small family run restaurants about

Agree. They over salt everything to the point it makes you feel awful. My friend and I both got food poisoning (mussels we both had the same meal). They denied it and were very unapologetic.

Mowgli for me. Under flavoured and a bit sloppy. I asked for some chilli and they told me it wasn't their vibe