Cafe Murano Covent Garden — Restaurant in London

I booked Cafe Murano for a pre theatre dinner for some friends and I. We ended up leaving very disappointed and it somewhat dampened our evening!

We all wanted the pre theatre set menu (2 courses @ £25), and all ordered a main and a dessert (at the same time). The mains came and were fine, no complaints, though admittedly nothing special. Nothing that I can be bothered to write about in this review that was especially stand out.

We had all ordered the hazelnut meringue for dessert but as our mains were cleared our waiter came back to tell us that it had run out. Fine, that happens. The other options were a cheeseboard and a sorbet served with grappa.

The waiter said we could choose to order a dessert from the main menu (at extra cost). When we then wanted to know how much we’d be charged for only having a 1 course set menu it then proved to be really hard to get an answer! Eventually we were told it would be £20.

We asked if we could sub the meringue from the main menu instead but that was apparently not possible.

After some very long and circuitous conversations (and when clear we were frustrated) the waiter eventually said they could recreate a version of the hazelnut meringue dessert. Which they did and it was very delicious. I had the sorbet which was ok (the grappa was very strong and not really to my taste).

Service was very polite but frustrating that there was little flexibility with substituting something/offering another option when what we’d ordered had run out. I was expecting better customer service for this standard / price of restaurant. Our waiter was trying his best but we suspect had inflexible management. Wouldn’t go again I’m afraid! (A shame because I do like...

Well, after wanting to visit one of Angela Hartnets' restaurants for a while (one of my wife's favourite TV chefs) we eventually booked Cafe Murano Covent Garden on a trip to London and as it was a birthday treat for my wife we were especially looking forward to it. We were greeted nicely at the door and by the barman on the way in, then we were shown to our seats. Our experience then started to sour. I asked for a cider (it stated on the drinks menu Ales and cider) but was told there was none, so I opted for an Ale. My wife ordered a Cosmopolitan. We placed our order for our food. I went for the skate wings with extra potatoes, my wife the rigatoni pasta with spicy sausage ragu. The food was a bit of a disappointment. My skate was cooked ok. However, the roasted potatoes had hard, sharp edges on them, difficult to cut through and were drenched in olive oil. My wife's pasta, although tasting nice, some of the pasta on the dish were cooked perfectly, but some were definitely undercooked. I'm not sure how this was achieved. Did someone add a small handful in 2 minutes after the rest? No idea but surely a cafe of this standard can cook pasta properly! The servers during the meal looked a bit depressed, so I'm not sure if anything had happened prior to us getting there, but we did notice them arguing amongst each other. They only cheered up when saying goodbye to us on the way out. None of the servers came over and asked how the meal was during our stay, but they did give us a complimentary lemonchello drink, seeing as it was my wife's birthday. Unfortunately, it was not the experience we had hoped for,...

I rarely eat Italian out as I know what homemade Italian tastes and really difficult to replicate in a busy restaurant and I really don't want to pay restaurant prices... but this was the soft opening at Cafe Murano Covent Garden so I was curious to try it out without paying the Michelin Star price. We were sat upstairs which had a modern beamed roof that you could see the colour of the sky, it has its own bar and just very welcoming yet rather quiet on a sunny Saturday afternoon. We took our time to order. The cocktails were strong but bland. The cichettis were very flavourful. The primi pasta of girolles was bland and not that hot (temperature wise). The gnocchi primi was perfectly portioned (small) and rather tasty but you really need to appreciate olives which provides the flavour and saltiness. The apricot and pistachio semi freddo was bland (but then again what was I expecting)? The Tiramisu - couldn't really taste the coffee and there was more cream in it than there was mascarpone as my friend who is lactose intolerant got an upset tummy from it afterwards (there is minimal lactose in mascarpone but cream may have been added to improve the texture. The service however was polite and we never felt rushed but we did have to leg it to the theatre afterwards to make our matinee. Would I go back? I am not sure... it was not cheap and being part of theatreland, consumers are spoilt for choice... I would go there pre-theatre for cichetti... yes I would go back for that. My comments refer only to the vegetarian courses, I believe my friend really loved her Octopus Cichetti and her sea bass dish in...