Bistro Freddie — Restaurant in London

Food was mostly excellent.

I started with steak tartare which was rich and punchy. Tartare recipes can vary a lot and the version at Freddie was quite acidic, and contained quite a lot capers and egg yolk. The accompanying fried bread was greasy to the touch but very brittle and wafer-like, offering a lovely contrasting texture. It had been made with a big bubble style of bread giving the paper thin slices a lacy look and surprisingly light taste despite being deep fried. My companion started with the celeriac and bitter greens with blue cheese. Beautifully balanced salad with candied nuts that had been first toasted quite dark prior to caramelization. The vinaigrette was slightly sweet which offset nicely against bitterness of radicchio and Belgian endive. Celeriac had been mandolined very thin and had been quick pickled in a citrusy brine. For my taste the salad needed a touch more blue cheese to play off against the sweet elements.

We both liked that particular attention had been paid to food temperature. The salad was served very, very cold which accentuated it's refreshing nature. The beef tartare was served chilled only slightly below room temperature which felt perfect.

We both had the gnocchi as a main which is the only dish I would criticize. The texture of the gnocchi was light and pillowy but tasted more of raw flour than potato, unfortunately. Cheese sauce was excellent--not heavy at all despite being quite cheesey. There was quite a bit of shaved truffle that was strangely tasteless. Chanterelles had been pickled. The blandness of the truffle left the dish feeling unbalanced. A hit of crunchiness and umami in the form of a few fried sage leaves, or some deep fried slivers of olive would have been welcome.

The red house wine at £39 was really good. Atmosphere is a little odd. Lights are romantically dim and supplemented with candles. However, the buzzy noise level of conversation is unromantic. There is music playing in the background the acoustics are poor with a concrete floor and bar counter and no curtains or fabric to speak off. Some (not all) of the tables are very...

The food was good; the duck was cooked well. Although the restaurant is quite small, the open kitchen concept was nice.

Unfortunately, what let the whole evening down was the service. As we sat down, we had been informed by one of the waitresses that the restaurant required the table back by 8:15pm. Our booking was at 6pm so of course that was perfectly acceptable.

However, the manager/waiter dressed in black provided terrible service. We felt very uncomfortable the whole night and he kept reminding us they required the table back by 8:15pm, even though we had plenty of time left.

It’s fine to inform customers once that they require the table back by a certain time when we’re seated, or if we had run over, but repeatedly reminding us was not acceptable and will just make customers feel very rushed and unwelcome.

After our main meals were finished, he offered us the dessert menu, which we just wanted to look at because we were full already, but he quickly informed us that there are only 2 options because again they “required the table back by 8:15pm” in a very uninviting and unprofessional manner.

We ended up just getting the bill so we could leave.

Even as our friend went to visit the restrooms after paying, he was still rushing us to leave. We returned the table back to them and left before 8:15pm. There wasn’t even any customers waiting as we left. I’d understand more if there was a queue of customers waiting, but there wasn’t.

Although the food was good, it was nothing outstanding, especially for the price, and of course the service completely let it down, which you don’t expect from a restaurant like this. It’s the worst service I’ve ever received...

Great little place with twists on some French classics.

Really enjoyed my meal, though it was missing a few small elements to truly make it great.

House sausage: one of my favourite dishes, high quality meat, glossy savoury sauce, great starter overall

Grilled leeks: the sauce is great (especially to mop up with the flatbreads) but the leeks were under cooked, they still had that acrid taste of raw allium in the middle. Which is a shame as the outside layers are good

Snail flatbread: the bread itself is fantastic, great texture, bouncy, stretchy. The snail butter is delicious but I wish it had a couple flakes of salt on top to really round the whole thing

Grilled cabbage: gorgeous dish, loved the celeriac purée. This is a comforting, warming dish, cooked just enough to make the cabbage soft, taste like the grill but not fall apart too much. Perfect to be shared amongst two as you get two large slices of cabbage

Bavette steak: the peppercorn sauce is the star of the show, I highly recommend ordering chips just to mop them in the sauce. This dish is the highlight for me. Shoutout to the fries that are twice cooked, once in vinegar and then deep fried, they’re fantastic chips and some of the best I’ve had in London.

Sticky toffee pudding: my partner said it was the best he’s ever had, and I can confirm it’s lovely. It’s sweet, the cake is soft but slightly crispy at the edges, great pudding.

Overall really enjoyed the food here, with a few tweaks it would be a perfect score.

The atmosphere here is great for a romantic dinner date, the staff is friendly and we chose to sit at the kitchen bar so we could watch the chefs...