Bobo Social - Ealing Broadway — Restaurant in London

We arrived at 6 to an empty restaurant. That’s fine - friendly efficient service took the order. We settled down to have a drink and wait food. We then realised the seating was hard benches - this is a new restaurant and no padding at all?!

5 mins later waiter is back - sorry, they had run out of mashed potato. This is an odd thing to run out of. What had they done in the prep time from lunch? Is it just in a bag and they had to wait for delivery? Could they not go buy some potatoes?

Ok so we got past this. The mains arrive. Well 3 arrived. 5 mins later the salad and the mussels for the other 2 arrived. Again a bit odd as we were only people - the kitchen was not stretched. There were 3 chefs there.

Now the really bad bit - mussels are a beautiful dish. Of the bowls I had 30% were either badly smashed or not open. You cannot under any circumstance serve or eat mussels in that state. It takes 20 seconds for a chef to check this both before cooking and after cooking - why had they not looked for broken mussels? This is a huge proportion to suffer this. As I mentioned ruined earlier we were the only people in the restaurant so they were under no duress at all in the kitchen.

They took it off the bill, but this is just very poor cooking suggesting they reheat most stuff and don’t cook it.

I was very disappointed as I have read great things about this place, but if you want my advice - go somewhere else. Excluding the mussels for 5 main courses and a bottle of mid wine we spent including...

I want to leave the highest praise for the incredible service we received from Ashana and Ruben. They looked after a group of over 20 of us — no small feat — and they handled it all with absolute professionalism, warmth, and grace.

From the moment we arrived, both Ashana and Ruben were attentive, friendly, and completely unflappable. Our group was large, and the orders were constantly changing — drinks swapped, meals added or altered, and general organised chaos! But they navigated it all with a calm and positive attitude, never once seeming flustered or impatient.

Not only were they efficient and on top of every single detail, but they were also genuinely kind, smiling throughout the entire service and making us feel completely looked after. The level of patience they showed, especially with such a big and at times demanding group, was truly impressive.

Ashana and Ruben are a shining example of what excellent hospitality looks like. They are an absolute credit to the team and the establishment, we honestly cannot commend them enough. Thank you both for making our lunch run so smoothly and for doing it with such grace. You really made a lasting impression...

First time visiting and unfortunately it will be the last. The place looked good from the outside and the reviews seemed decent, but my experience was very different.

It took around 25 minutes just for a waiter to come and take our order, despite the restaurant not being busy at all.

There were at least six staff members standing around the bar chatting to each other, while we kept trying to make eye contact and were repeatedly ignored. The servers were inattentive from start to finish.

We ordered the chilli squid and lamb croquettes to start. The squid was extremely rubbery – so much so that I’d hesitate to order it anywhere again.

For mains, we had the full English breakfast, eggs benedict, and truffle fries. The crumpet under the benedict was very dry, and the truffle fries arrived undercooked (to their credit, this was removed from the bill).

The biggest issue, though, was the service. What should have been a simple meal of eggs, fries, and a couple of starters turned into a two-hour ordeal.

Even when we asked for the bill it took ages to arrive, by which point we just couldn’t wait to leave. Overall, very disappointing and not somewhere...