Boro Bistro — Restaurant in London

I've come here for years, spent my birthday here in 2022 and decided to do so again. It's no longer the lovely place it was.

We booked 2 tables and called to ask if they could be next to or close to each other. We were told we'd have to pay a minimum £45ph to do this, even though we had two bookings. We didn't want to scramble to change plans and its always been great so I decided to keep the booking as it was and hope we'd be together. The manager was unhelpful in advance and in person.

Two of my friends had glasses of red wine spilt all over them accidentally, on white clothes. This server was lovely but had no idea on how to clear this up due to lack of training. They stood clearing glasses and had to be instructed with urgency by us to get towels to mop this up and a glass of white wine to stain remove! I had to ask to get the spilled drinks taken off the bill.

They had overbooked which is stressful, so I tried to reason with the manager. We gave up one of our tables as some in our party were arriving a little later, and offered to squeeze around one. That was met with a "no, it would mean the kitchen would be too busy". This made no sense as we had the same number of people in the booking whether we were sat around one or two tables. I said we'd just have drinks to ease pressure on the kitchen and got a "no as they don't take bookings just for drinks". Any compromise was met with no's. We gave up and went somewhere welcoming to enjoy the evening, but this meant 2 of our group had to go home as they had a baby with them and there was an early licence in the new location which was upsetting.

The server who'd spilled the wine was lovely and extremely apologetic about our situation with having to leave, you could see they felt bad.

We easily met the BB minimum spend elsewhere, and I don't understand why an independent bistro would turn away business with such little foresight. A real shame, I'm still shocked by this manager, and none of us would...

Don’t bother. Can’t comment on food but my friend arrived at 6.30 and ordered drinks for us both, I arrived at about 6.45. At 7pm I went to the bar and collected our drinks because they were horribly understaffed and we could see our drinks sitting there getting flat. At 7.20 a waitress finally arrived with the bill (which included service charge). We paid it even though I’d had to go and collect the drinks myself because service was so slow. About 15 mins later the waitress appeared and collected our empties and we ordered a second round. The drinks came at a reasonable pace that time so we relaxed and thought all was fine. Around 5 mins later the waitress appeared telling us we’d been there over an hour and needed to leave. We had full drinks we’d just ordered. Nobody had explained this bizarre ‘1 hour’ rule when my friend or I arrived, or when they’d delivered our second drink. We had 2 full beers, the table wasn’t reserved and there were plenty of other seats. We explained this and the waitress left us alone. 10 minutes later the waitress came and told us we’d gone over their 1 hour rule (we had 3/4 full beers at this point), we asked if we could give feedback to the manager that this was ridiculous. The manager came and was fairly sympathetic when we explained we’d been waiting 25 mins for our first round and had to go collect it ourselves (and still paid their service charge), we pointed out the (very drunk) table next to us had been there longer than we had and no one had asked them to move. He told us they owned the bar. It was their stupid 1 hour rule this poor man had to enforce. I felt so uncomfortable constantly being asked to leave and have never had this happen anywhere else in London. The owners would rather have an empty bar than have anyone stay longer than 1 hour… ridiculous, don’t...

If you’re wandering around London Bridge and suddenly feel the urge to escape to a little slice of Parisian madness without the Eurostar fare, Boro Bistro is your answer. This place is like stepping into the French cousin’s basement party you never knew you needed—there’s fairy lights, salamis dangling above the bar like edible tinsel, and enough Duvel beer to make you start rolling your Rs like you’re in Marseille.

The menu is a chaotic symphony of glorious French indulgence. We tried to be sensible and order “just a few tapas plates” but the charcuterie board winked at us and the duck rillettes practically leapt onto the table. Before long it was a full-blown food affair—mussels swimming in garlic and smugness, beef bavette that was so tender it nearly brought a tear to the eye, and a risotto so creamy it could double as skincare.

Service was friendly and just the right amount of French nonchalance. The staff looked like they’d just walked off a modelling shoot but still managed to carry ten plates and throw in a wine recommendation that knocked our socks off. Also, shout out to the bar which had more bottles than a baby convention and an espresso machine that seemed to take itself extremely seriously.

We sat under a massive Vedett umbrella with wine in hand, surrounded by cheery humans and dangerously good cheese, while trains thundered past above us like some kind of urban soundtrack. Honestly, it’s romantic in a “we might be underneath a bridge but there’s truffle fries” kind of way.

Boro Bistro is chaotic, charming, slightly eccentric, and absolutely brilliant. Go hungry, go thirsty, and whatever you do, don’t wear anything...