Chishuru — Restaurant in London

Bad and disappointed experience.

I booked a dinner for one just within 2 hours before the appointment. Before I arrived, I was still curious how it can be so easy to make a same day booking. After I got there, I found the lower ground floor was totally empty with only 3 tables were being served.

I ordered the dinner menu with an extra goat tartare plus a glass of white. Honestly, the starters were quite good with distinct regional feature which finds a good balance between spicy and sour. Even though there was a long gap between the third starter and the adder tartare, I still felt comfortable and emerged in the special African flavour.

The nightmare started from the main, cod fillet, which was recommend by the staff. I felt a little bit confused why she didn't choose goat or the celeriac cake, but still accepted for her must try persuading. The cod came together with a small dish of vegetables and a bowl of rice and fried banana. What shocked me was the cod went bad with a smell of light ammonia but not fishy smell.

I rose my hand several times until I was noticed. The staff took the cod and replaced another one in 15 mins, but still without any explanation about this issue. The replaced cod tasted fresh but no more good point. I felt I was just having my dinner in a street food court. With no outstanding food quality, cooking skill, no mention the pleasure of mouth. I was full by the bowl of rice finally.

After paid the bill, there was no reception to serve the stored coat and bag. A manager came to the reception when three men just walked in and she ignored me without asking another staff for assistance. I got my belongings back by myself at the same time she just seated the previous three ones. She said: "You had all your things." in an indifferent tone.

I felt so disappointed about Chishuru not only because it just got one Michelin star but also because it is the worst fine dining service I have ever had in London. I can not image how the service would be when it runs in a busy time.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I was so surprised by the Chishuru's reply. What I said are the facts that I experienced in the restaurant without subjective judgement. However, Chishuru's feedback seems ironic and arrogant to the customer.

Isn't it more important for you to focus on improving your bad fish quality and indifferent table service? I fell I understand why there was only few customers at the dinner time.

Thanks for your response, which is also the most mad and rude feedback I have ever met. I will forward the entire comments to Michelin to see how it will try to keep your one star in such a...

Good, but didn't match the hype and definitely didn't match the price point.

After reading a lot about it, I really wanted to love Chishuru. Things started well; the staff are attentive, friendly and impressively knowledgeable about the dishes, and the atmosphere is relaxed and fun.

However, the £48 taster menu was frankly disappointing.

The first of 3 starters was spiced fried corn with a scotch bonnet sauce. This was nice, but the heat of the sauce masked almost all the other flavours (and I am massively into spicy food). The lingering heat also meant that the next two starters were fighting with the scotch bonnet for attention in the mouth and losing. If you're going to include such a spicy dish, having it so early in the meal is a mistake - it affects everything that comes after.

The second starter was a selection of raw vegetables (carrots, radishes, etc) with about half a teaspoon of peanut and coconut 'sauce' (if you told me this was flavoured peanut butter, I could not have faulted you). It is almost comical that a £48 taster menu includes a plate which is built around a raw carrot. 1kg of carrots costs 40p at any shop... how can this be justified?

The third starter - a scallop in an African spiced sauce - was nice, but the sauce was thin. This means that you have to eat a scallop with no sauce sticking to it, then drink the sauce from the shell either. There might be a promising flavour combination there, but the texture of the sauce made it impossible to know.

The main (I had chicken and my partner had cauliflower) was very well cooked but a little one dimensional. The same sauce (albeit tasty) was used on both dishes, which seemed odd. Shouldn't a tasting menu be tailored to bring the best out of each ingredient, not just to peddle a 'one-size-fits-all' sauce?

Dessert was a small spoonful of ice cream with a tart, sharp sauce. It wasn't quite sweet, but wasn't quite anything else either. Unremarkable, sadly.

We also had a 'cocktail' which tasted almost completely non-alcoholic, and was like a thin green juice. Perhaps it would have been better to have had wine, of which there seemed to be a decent selection.

Overall, I couldn't help but feel that Chishuru is overexploiting its own hype. If you want to say that you've been to Chisuru at the peak of its popularity, book a table. If you want a meal and experience worth the unavoidable £48 price tag, go...

I went with high expectations to Chishuru after it was declared Londons best restaurant in Time Out’s 2022 review.

There were aspects of this meal that were exceptional but did it deserve its top spot…not for me.

The chicken and hake main courses were superb. A perfect balance of flavour and textures. The dessert was meagre and anticlimactic - a small scoop of melting ice-cream with a coconut crumble that lacked any wow factor. Whilst the medley of 3 starters were interesting and tasty, they were also let down by a miserly portion size - a single sad looking thin padron pepper, 1.5 pickled radishes, and a single scallop, although the accompanying silky smooth peanut dip and scallop bisque were both sumptuous to be fair.

Nigerian hospitality is renowned for its generosity - I couldn’t help but feel that many of these plates were leaving me short changed.

The setting was understated and whilst the service was earnest, polite and endearing, it wasn’t especially attentive. At times it felt more like a diner rather than restaurant experience. No sooner had one plate been finished, then another was placed down without any time to pause for thought/conversation.

My two biggest gripes were that the same knife and fork was used for all 3 sequential starters and the main course. At £140 for two with a bottle of wine, it wouldn’t have been a big ask to replace these at least before the mains. Secondly we ran out of rice only half way through our main. We politely asked for some more at 22.10pm only for the waitress to return to let us know the kitchen had been closed. Surely rice didn’t require an entire kitchen to be active. To rub salt into our wounds, we then saw the chef stir frying a wok of identical rice in 2 minutes at 22.25pm, which was then dished out for the staff to eat. I have no qualms with your staff eating, they work hard and deserve to do so. But this did send out the wrong message that your kitchen team have such little regard for your customers that they can’t be bothered to whip up some simple rice in the same fashion for them.

Was I happy we went? Yes

Would I go again for dinner? Probably not at that price point

Would I go for their...