Breddos Tacos Clerkenwell — Restaurant in London

I'm basing this on five visits. Feel compelled to write a review after stopping by yesterday. I am a local business owner and have taken customers here quite a bit recently.

The food is very good, some argue a little pricey however it's a 'higher end' take on Mexican cuisine. Quality of the ingredients is clearly there- you could have a satisfying meal here for £15 pp with a drink. Not bad for the quality on offer. If you want Chipotle prices go there....but Chipotle quality thou shall receive.

The main courses a very good however the stars of the menu are the tacos, particularly the beef and pork varients. The drinks menu is also very good with a good range of craft beers and a cute, well considered wine list.

The environment is buzzy. I love the vinyl touch however the music volume is silly. It gets tedious having to ask fellow diners to repeat themselves so often, let alone the discomfort.

Onto a real problem. What's really letting the side down is the front of house waiting staff. The kitchen are coming through on their end with great food. But the service is starkly inconsistent from day-to-day and person-to-person. I'm used to "cool" places having a slightly abrasive manner...a bit sad but hey.

On each and every visit there was a big song and dance about where we were allowed to sit. I understand there is rent/wages to pay but I'm frankly put off Breddas after being pigeon-holed down the uncomfortable/anti social bar stool section every time, whether there is 2,3 or 4 of us- I thought by now I'd be a familiar face.

Well, yesterday I couldn't be bothered with negotiating with the waitress on arrival. After sitting in a booth in the sparsely occupied restaurant, we left this 'should be 5*' indie and received friendly service at a chain called Pizza Express...foods decent if anyone's not been.

Breddas I'm frustrated with you. Love thy customer, treat them like gold and we'll keep coming back because what you do is great. The way you service it needs immediate work. I'll stop by in a few months. I sincerely hope by that time you'll...

Oh my gawd the hype! Breddos has certainly generated some hype around it so I headed out to find out if it lived up to the hype. It doesn't. Well, maybe...

It's a small place that doesn't take reservations so I would arrive early. This place is very popular! There is a central communal table, a few booths, and counters with stalls around the edges. They really need to fix the seating. I was really ready to leave. My bum wasn't just asleep by the end of our lunch it was in a coma! Any longer and my bum cheeks would be dead. I would miss those guys!

The first disappointment was the menu. There's a sample menu online. On getting the menu in the restaurant I find that only half the items are available to order. I understand that being a sample it may not be totally representative as to what form the dishes take but surely there would be the same actual number of dishes??? The number shrank by one as I learned one of the items wasn't available because they had forgot to cook it...

The food was... It was.... nice. I enjoyed it. Nothing wrong with it at all but there's nothing amazing about it either. No fireworks. No wow. No nom nom nom nom. It was just nice. Maybe we got them on a bad day? I have seen the food online that others have taken and they don't look anything like what I received. For example the rib eye tacos in many photos has lots of onions and a green sauce. Mine has no sauce and a few onions. It's the little details that count. See my photo. All of the tacos I had were like this. So maybe it does live up to the hype but just not on the day that I went?

Service was good if a little scatty. Staff were very friendly and welcoming which is always a big part of a restaurant visit. Prices seem a bit on the steep side. I would recommend giving them a try. Maybe you'll get the hype version. Just...

Loud music from tinny speakers made it hard to enjoy each fascinatingly miniature, though perfectly presented, individual taco. To pass the time, we tried to see how many bites we could get out of each taco; our record was four at a cost of £1 per nibble though usually it was a lot fewer. The cochinita pibil did not have the authenticity of flavour but the corn tortillas themselves were very good.

Including the suggested service charge of 12.5%, the barbacoa was £21.38. Instead of the lamb wrapped in banana leaves and barbecued under coals for two days, that I was expecting, I got three vertebrae of braised lamb neck in a soup bowl. They came with four palm-sized tortillas, a table spoon of chopped red onion and two dollops of chilli sauce. Not unpleasant, but would not pass for barbacoa by someone that had tried it before.

Tips to improve: Reward your clients and benefit yourself with economies of scale: encourage guests to order a platter of tacos, at a modest discount to individual prices. Per taco, it will be much cheaper for you to produce and (because some of this saving is passed to the consumer) your guests will get better value. Double win.

Serve diced white onion on the side of tacos and provide some chopped coriander.

For the barbacoa you need to cook it slower and with less oxygen. Bind the meat in green leaves...