Cafe Lemon — Restaurant in London

A lukewarm reception during low business with only several other customers seated. Whilst waiting to be served we enjoyed the decor and well executed "lemon" theme. The menu is well printed but has an odd instruction to not stay for more then 90 mins and spend £5 or more. After the tepid entrance this made us feel a little less welcome than standard. Follow this with another warning on the barely visible default letter vomit WiFi password stating to keep use down to an hour. We ordered a peanut banana milkshake and lemonade, both of which were very nice and flavourful. Next was the food. The new special "weekend roast". We asked what was included as sides as a roast with just chips sounded odd. Turns out it was a misprint, so much for the well printed menu. The "weekend roast" consists of your choice of roast meat, sautéed potatoes and spinach with broccoli, Yorkshire pudding and gravy. Wanting some sweet potato fries we asked to substitute and got a garbled reply that they cannot and do not change things out. Some vague allusion that it would be troublesome and unfair. Eventually he came back to say we ran out of chicken and they could offer regular sweet potato but not fries. Somewhat of a win but hardly easy to accommodate. Once the food arrived, overall slow for being so vacant of customers, we found it low on gravy and dry. Everything was arranged in a pile more akin to a kebab than a British roast. Experimentation is welcome but the beef we opted for was dry, likely been under a heat lamp for hours and tough. Not at all the silverside tender slices many would be familiar with. The potatoes were not crisp, just sautéed as described but not the comfort one expects in a roast. The spinach seemed to be freshly chopped but not sautéed at all. Peppers and courgettes had been added, further changing the flavour profile from British roast to barbecue. It was all edible but not delectable or inspiring for £11.95 each. For the same price I'd highly recommend Forks and Green down the road. Looking at reviews from the last 5 years, Cafe Lemon has kept it's charming appearance but lost some passion in hospitality and cooking. I hope this isn't a trend as they have had a great history, unfortunately I don't see myself being a part of it as this experience will have me avoiding anything but the lemonade. Upon paying the bill and saying our good-byes we were given a pair of complementary teas, which were absolutely lovely. I wish this establishment better days...

A cafe with a very nice and welcoming interior design that creates a great first impression, unfortunately this impression fades when you look closer. One of the staff seemed very nice, but vanished a little after I received my initial order, a cappuccino. The other staff, almost like in a good cop / bad cop scenario, was not really friendly or welcoming. When I asked him if he could clean the table, which was pretty dirty, I received a comment that there is a weird rule that one customer can't spend more than 90minutes in the place. The place was 90% empty. After looking at the wall, you notice a paper informing that per person you also need to spend at least 5£ to be seated... I initially wanted to have some food as I read good reviews about it and the menu is quite inspiring, but after taking a look at the kitchen from behind the bar, was quite disappointed by the overall dirtiness of it. And the place had been almost empty several hours prior to that, so it wasn't the consequence of an intense rush, which would be totally understandable. It was rather a sort of accumulated dirtiness that you don't want to see. And the state of the pans that were under my eyes, with the non-stick surface half erased, raised some concerns and made me change my mind about ordering food. The coffee...

I've been coming here since Cafe Lemon opened. The reason why I came a lot at the start was the quality - for example homemade baked beans for the vegan breakfast. I was prepared to pay more for touches like that. I'm not quite sure why, but the quality isn't what it used to be any more. The vegan burger is not homemade, and is a frozen Strong Roots burger you can buy in Tesco, the buns are burger buns but advertised as brioche... overall the last meal felt disappointing.

My feeling looking at the gigantic menu and looking around the cafe (which is starting to heave with the amount of clutter) is that it's trying to be a lot of things, and I can't imagine how expensive that is to the already squeezed bottom line. I think going back to its original principles of when it started of doing a few things well would help. I do hope it can return to how it was before as we did used to enjoy it...