Cafe Cecilia — Restaurant in London

I am glad that I am not the only person who thinks that this place is overhyped after reading the reviews here. I really want to like this place as much as I like Simone Rocha's work (as the head chef is her brother) but the food quality and service is really mediocre with the price it is charging - this is a place just for middle-class people (who don't have knowledge of what good food is) to consume the brand but not the food.

Too faced customer service I went there at 11:50 the restaurant door was opened (and there was a breakfast menu on the website) and I went in, no staff offered help or greetings until I asked if it was opened and one of them answered 'at 12!'. When I returned to the restaurant at 12:15 the same staff mocked at me and said 'We are opened now!'. There is a difference between being friendly joky or sassy and I can tell it comes from snobbishness.

Food Quality & Pricing I ordered the saddleback pork with turnip and greens, it costed £30 and as you can see from the photo, portion is decent but the meat is over cooked, very dry. The gravy lacks flavour and tasted very bland. I appreciate the presentation and the attention to detail, the garlic butter sauce and the greens was quite nice, yet the turnip/mooli was very bitter - which was not something that I'd expect. And when I asked the staff if it was meant to taste bitter she said 'yes that is what turnip tastes like!', which I was not too sure about as it did not go well with the dish. Personally I would prefer this to be a brined apricot or pear. Or the chefs could have considered to brine the mooli/turnip in sugar water. However, I would say the Guinness Bread ice cream is quite special and does taste nice. As you can read from the reviews here the desserts here is quite well made, yet regrettably not the main dishes. I also ordered a zero Asahi and ended up paying £43.87 for the food and the services, I do not think this is worth it in terms of the food quality and the services. I would say if these all are within £30 then it might worth a shot. At the end of the day this feels more like an instagrammable restaurant (thanks to the bright daylight), there are many more restaurant in the area that makes better food with the same price.

Atmosphere The toilet light was broken and it was very dark to use the bathroom. Quite a terrible experience when you are paying this much for the food and services.

I might come back and give it another chance but very likely not in the near future as I need to recover from this huge...

Unfortunately, I was late arriving due to traffic(Completely my fault) but once seated it took quite awhile before we were served our first drink. One of the 2 main special had already run out half way through first service? Once we ordered our food it arrived in a rushed way (although one of the dishes we ordered, never arrived). We were seated very close to the next table, who arrived with a very large greyhound, which when standing its head, was above the table top height. I found this very uncomfortable as our food was in close proximity to its face. We were only in our seats for one hour and 15 minutes before we were told we needed to order dessert. If we were having it as they wanted the table back immediately. The waiter then came over to inform us the next people for our table were waiting, pointed at them, and informed us that the lady was pregnant. This made us feel very uncomfortable, and we felt pressured to leave our wine and vacate the table quickly . I feel the attitude of our waiter was unfriendly and very functional. While I generally think a two hour slot is too short (and ours appeared to be 1 hour 45) in any restaurant, it is fast becoming the norm, and with the right attitude, we would very happily have assisted our waiter , what should’ve been a happy Mother’s Day celebration for myself and my son wasn’t at all relaxed. We went onto a bar and asked for a specific table, the friendly staff agreed but informed us if it got busy, they may need to move us to a different table which we would happily have done because of the pleasant attitude in which we were dealt with. There is no excuse for bad customer service. If you show kindness you...

Overhyped and now a little full of itself - to be expected of a restaurant that’s so hyperglamorised on Insta.

I have previously been to Cafe Cecilia twice and enjoyed the food, though it was on the expensive end of the spectrum. I live locally so dine regularly at nearby Waterhouse Project, Rogues or now the new and exceptional Sune.

We booked CC again this weekend to take some friends visiting from Belgium. Firstly, we had to book a month in advance (because it’s impossible to just go and enjoy a meal here without this level of forward planning). Then, the night before the booking, our reservation was automatically cancelled by Resy with no explanation. I called CC to find out what happened. The staff checked the system, which said I had cancelled it via Resy (which I didn’t - why would I cancel something I had to wait weeks for?). Unfortunately, the restaurant was (you guessed it) fully booked by the time I called. Either way, clearly it wasn’t a CC error so I don’t blame them for the glitch. The issue I have is with how the staff I spoke to handled this.

When I asked them to leave feedback with Resy, so this doesn’t happen again to other customers, they weren’t interested. When I asked if they could take my number down in case someone failed to turn up for their booking, they refused (because apparently no one ever misses a booking at CC). I really didn’t expect much (other than maybe someone being human, saying sorry and at least pretending to care about a customer?). Clearly, if you’re a restaurant this hyped up on Instagram, you really don’t need to be hospitable. With this much completion in the area, I don’t think I’ll be...