To ask what’s the most overrated restaurant you’ve eaten at?

[Hairbrush123]

I think for me, it’s a restaurant called “Tattu”. They’re dotted all around the UK and was so excited to try it but the food was so average yet they charge £100+ for two people based on a starter and main . Everyone who I know has been there absolutely loved it so maybe it’s just DP & I!

What’s the most overrated restaurant you’ve been to?

Cote is walking a tightrope, the menu itself fills a niche & is particularly OK for gluten free diners. Same old story, started off well with a distinct identity & offer, big money comes in & rapid expansion leads to dilution to the point of tincture.

@Sansucre @HundredMilesAnHour - getting local - Newington Green: again not been a while due to lockdown, but pre-Covid I enjoyed Belle Époque a lot. It had great scoff & considerable charm, but fear recent expansion may sweep all that away.

Sorry to hear that Hawksmoor ain’t as great. A prompt for me to go again, run a field trial, get my teeth stuck in

Patisserie Valerie in OCSt: I used to go with my Dad on Saturday mornings for a hot chocolate. We’d go shopping nearby for freshly ground coffee & deli stuff - his treats. Very 60s, proper dodgy Soho.
Likewise, nostalgia for J Sheekeys for family treats.

There's massive branch of Jolene in Holloway now called Big Jo's. Pastries look good but the coffee is better at the smaller (and less busy) roastery next door.

@KillingMeDeftly

There's massive branch of Jolene in Holloway now called Big Jo's. Pastries look good but the coffee is better at the smaller (and less busy) roastery next door.

That is one extremely overrated restaurant. Miniature portions and extremely expensive. I was so excited when it opened but it’s been such a letdown. Western’s Laundry at Highbury (same owners) also has an exceptionally high (and unjustified) opinion of itself.

For pastries around Holloway Le Peche Mignon is lovely & further afield Popham’s are my picks.

Haven't been to Big Jo's as Holloway isn't my neighbourhood and just that bit too far (I'm in the City). I have always found the food at Jolene great and well-priced. I don't drink coffee, so can't comment on that. Their Redchurch branch is small, just coffee and baked goods. So long as the standard of the latter continue, then I'm happy.

@UniversalAunt Only really go to Newington Green to see a particular friend/the greengrocers. Haven't been to Belle Époque for ages. Might just have to do that next time I'm there.

@Porridgeislife That's disappointing. I'd not actually been to the restaurant except for a takeaway coffee. Will give it a miss in that case. I hadn't heard of the other two cafes you mentioned but they're on my list now!

It looks like a fair few of us live in a similar area. Perhaps we should start a thread on North London cafe/restaurant recommendations!

Have any of you NLers tried Authentique-Epicerie in Fortess Road near Tufnell Park tube station? I haven't been for a long time but it was great. They've got a branch in Whetstone too.
Back to the point of the thread - Hawksmoor 7 Dials, we had a great time but the steak was TOUGH. They emailed me to ask how our lunch was so I told them. They responded immediately, apologised and gave me a big credit but I never went back...

I love Cote breakfast

Seems so decedent and though pricey is a nice for a special breakfast out

Haven't rtft but I think I know the Tollcross Thai restaurant. It's exceptionally mediocre but people seem to love it. Just the other day, a colleague was going on about treating herself to a birthday meal out there. There are some exceptional Thai restaurants in Edinburgh (IMO) but this one gets the hype.

I've not been to Tattu and this thread confirms my reasons. I do get grumpy about restaurants which cater more for instagramability and less about the taste and/or customer service. BiL and his wife, who are very flash and need to be seen in the right places, recently took very traditional PiLs to Tattu for dinner. PiLs were not impressed - they are mince & tatties style folk and didn't understand half the words on the menu and nearly had a heart attack at the prices.

I had a really disappointing meal recently at a very expensive steakhouse with a glowing reputation. The starter was greasy and inedible and the steak was small and overcooked (I had specified medium rare. We had waited 2 hours from being seated to receiving food so I wasn't really up for sending it back. £140 for two of us for that experience (2 courses, wine, no coffees etc). It was a special occasion meal and we were left very disappointed.

Easily The Rainforest Cafe. Being held hostage for half an hour in the gift shop queuing to get a table, even with a booking, added to how much I hated it. It’s dated and the food is awful.

Putting hard hat on😀🙈......reading this I'm amazed people are prepared to spend hundreds of pounds feeding two or three people one meal when families could live off that for weeks and so many children are going to bed hungry.
I know it's your money,you've worked hard,want to treat yourselves,a one off etc etc,but still,I just could not do that.
I know this is going off post and I don't want to derail a light hearted chat op,sorry! I just find it hard to understand why.but if you're happy to make a hugely wealthy person even richer by spending hundreds of pounds on average food and "atmosphere" that's up to the individual ,enjoy.

I work in a 2 star restaurant and it is ££££. Would I pay the prices some people do for a meal? Honestly, no I wouldn't. I'd do the 3 course ones which are a lot cheaper.

BUT, they do treat staff well. Hospitality can be brutal and in fancier places, the staff are treated so much better. So, if I was going out to somewhere v cheap, I'd be thinking about the staff. I've worked in bog standard pubs and it can be very hard going. I'd far prefer Michelin star as a worker. I've worked in a few Michelin star places and I've now become a bit of a snob about where I work! Not because of the kudos, but because i know I'll be treated more fairly.

@KarmaStar the way I see it is that I donate 10% of my income to highly effective charities, the rest of it is mine to do what I want. Could I live off bread and water in a studio flat with no furniture and donate more? Probably, but I should get to enjoy the fruits of my own labour too.

@KarmaStar

Putting hard hat on😀🙈......reading this I'm amazed people are prepared to spend hundreds of pounds feeding two or three people one meal when families could live off that for weeks and so many children are going to bed hungry. I know it's your money,you've worked hard,want to treat yourselves,a one off etc etc,but still,I just could not do that. I know this is going off post and I don't want to derail a light hearted chat op,sorry! I just find it hard to understand why.but if you're happy to make a hugely wealthy person even richer by spending hundreds of pounds on average food and "atmosphere" that's up to the individual ,enjoy.

I presume you give every spare penny you have to charity? And that everything you buy and every single decision you make is through an ethical lens with the good of wider society at the forefront of your mind?

It's really unfair to chastise people when you have no idea what else is going on in their lives. Going by your logic, would the cancer patient celebrating being in remission be allowed to have a restaurant meal? What about a child's birthday? Or someone's wedding?

Perhaps you didn't mean it the way it's come across but your post reads as being incredibly judgemental, passive aggressive, and that you are somehow morally and ethically so much better than everyone else on the thread.

Nobu

I'm amazed people are prepared to spend hundreds of pounds feeding two or three people one meal when families could live off that for weeks and so many children are going to bed hungry.

But, @KarmaStar, surely you could say the same thing about going on holiday - “I’m amazed so many people will spend thousands of pounds to go and stay somewhere else for a fortnight, leaving their own, functional, home empty, when there are so many homeless people on the streets”. Or many other examples….

I quite like the inexpensive French style places like Pierre Victoire.

We had a rather good family meal in the Oxford Cafe Rouge in Feb 2020 and we breakfasted this summer while on holiday in a Cote, and pretended we were in Paris rather than Worcester.

I am hoping that some of the better mid price chains manage to survive.

My dad was a cordon bleu chef and taught me some bits so if I wanted the kids to try something unusual for a change over lockdown, I was knocking stuff up like escalope a la milanese and serving it al fresco in the garden. With my 9 year old as a sous chef.

Dad used to say that he could cook better food at home than you would get in almost any restaurant. It's nice to get out occasionally though and pick up new ideas.

@KarmaStar oh give over, pretty much everything you buy is making a hugely wealthy person richer!
If you don’t want to spend your money this way, that’s fine but don’t start with the old ‘children are starving’ thing to press your point.

I'm not sure how buying expensive meals is worse than
buying designer clothes (when you could wear more budget ones)
expensive holidays (not essential as PP says)
top of the range cars (when you could buy cheaper)
Buying more expensive or branded food/ingredients (when you could buy the value range)
Buying a property in an expensive area (when you could buy a cheap flat elsewhere)

Unless you are on an extremely tight budget most people will spend money on wants, rather than needs, and these will vary according to their disposable income and their preferences

All of the chains- ask zizzi, prezzo etc. All rubbish. Wagamamas is watery and bland imo. The Ivy wasn’t great either

Off topic I know.

@sansucre, do you mean the greengrocers at the junction of Beresford Road?

Proper greengrocers are rare as hen’s bollocks these days.

I think the issue is that eating out - particularly at higher end restaurants- is so expensive now, that it's really got to be worth the expense.

I ate with a friend at Hawksmoor the other weekend. My Sunday roast at £22 was ok I suppose, but the Yorkshire pudding was tough and there was very little meat. My friends £30 sirloin was fine she said, but at a meal costing £40 - as it literally comes on the plate with noticing else, so you need to add sides - you expect it to be perfect.

I've been out for a few meals recently and with wine it's at least £50 a head - salaries have not gone up in line with restaurant prices - so now I'm not going to bother so much unless it's somewhere cheap or BYOB , or somewhere I've been to before where I know what the standards are - Six by Nico or Fazenda, which are both set prices for the food.

See a roast is something that’s on the surface ‘easy’ to get right but falls flat a lot. The local nice gastro pub prides itself on them- but like a lot of places they mass cook everything early on in the day and reheated roast potatoes are NEVER going to taste the same as they did fresh. Seems to be a trend these days to heap bucket loads of red cabbage on as well. A cauliflower cheese could be easily made tons better just by browning some cheese on top.

It’s £23 for a chicken roast dinner at this place and I think it’s ludicrous charging that when it’s so lacklustre, but maybe if you don’t cook or eat that many roasts yourself your bar isn’t as high as it should be.

Yes @WheelieBinPrincess and if I want an ok but not amazing roast I can go to the Toby carvery and get it for less than £10.

@Porridgeislife Le Peche Mignon looks tempting. I’ll take a diversion next time I’m nearby.