Dorian Restaurant — Restaurant in London

This restaurant holds its diners in contempt. The food is ridiculously overpriced. I have no problem with paying up in a restaurant providing it is worthy of the cost. Everything I ate tasted perfectly okay - good flavours, good seasoning (none of it compliacted to make, cook or assemble) but absolutely nothing was even remotley memorable.

On arriving we were approached four times about ordering drinks in the space of 5 minutes - there was hardly anyone else in the restaurant at this point - there is definitely a hard sell going on with the booze here - more about that later.

Our first few plates of ridiculously overpriced bitesized morsels - what this restaurant deems are starters are actually canapes, of which you are encourged to order plenty - arrived fairly quickly. We had ordered 3 canapes each followed by a choice from the "small sharing plate section" of the menu and finishing by sharing the turbot from the "larger/ main sized course" section - it was the size of a normal main course for one (but to be fair to them they did warn us that the turbot was smallest course in that section). The time between recieving the small and larger sharing courses was around 50 minutes. It actually came out 5 - 10 minutes after we'd finished our delicious bottle of white Burgundy and as it went down we were asked if we'd like another bottle of the Burgundy to go with the course - it would've gone very well with the turbot, btw. Maybe this is a coincience, but a 50 minute wait for one fairly basic plate of food that arrived 5-10 minutes - about the time it would've taken for the kitchen to prepare that course - after finishing our wine didn't seem like a coincidence to us, and as such we refused to buy another bottle.

The criminal part of this meal was yet to happen. I got a mouthful of small bones attached to the charred skin of the turbot and had to remove the offending bones and skin from my mouth and put them on the plate in front of me. It happened again in the next mouthful. When I made the waiter aware of this I was told in a very blase mannor "oh sorry, I'll let the kitchen know". The course was not deducted from the bill, no one from management or front of house came to apologise. At the very least they could have offered a shot of something from the bar, but to be honest just an actual sincere apology would've been fine for me. If I'd been a Michelin inspector then that's their star gone, right there!

As a final insult, I have been confined to the toilet - two of the canape courses only I had and they were shellfish based. since the early hours of this morning (we dined at Dorian last night).

I hope that the Michelin guide do revist this place and have an experience like ours. It is wholly undeserving of its star. Underneath the trendy, instagrammable facade lies arrogance and a total lack...

This was the 40th birthday of a very good friend, so I really wanted to spoil him. I made a reservation on a Tuesday after Easter for a 19.30 dinner. I mentioned in the reservation note that we would have preferred seating at a table rather than on the stools, but sadly they took no notice of that at all. However, despite my initial disappointment, the staff, the whole staff, was delightful, from the welcoming manager at the door, to the Lithuanian bartender to the sommelier who took us on a voyage of 2 worlds, recommending a Riesling and a Chardonnay that we alternated in drinking, as our choice of starters and main courses was so extensive and varied that this ping pong of flavours was matched by those 2 very different wines. Both were excellent and an incredibly good match to what we had decided to order. The food we had was outstanding, creative and classic with a few twists , we ordered as much as we possibly could, and we were rewarded by expert cooking, fantastic flavours, top notch quality ingredients, and a very memorable meal. We had the Calcot onions, chilly and lime, the beef tartare , the liver parfait, 6 oysters, 3 classic Gilardeau and 3 Riesling Oysters( you had to be there to see this starter, basically an oyster who is eaten at the same time of a Riesling shot. Incredible ! ). We also ordered the Duck with Apple mustard and the Turbot, the lobster claw skewer, the Trout,oyster and pickled onion rosti, the Lobster tail on toast, plus the unmissable desserts, Gariguette strawberry and chamomile creme caramel, the Chocolate, coffee and Rum, and the Brûlée French toast, plus an homage from the team because of the birthday occasion! I must stress that throughout the evening the staff couldn’t have been more apologetic for the stool situation, and they very kindly offered 2 generous servings of Billecarte-Salmon champagne plus 2 glasses of Chartreuse to compensate for the initial face of disappointment I had in the beginning. The bartender also gave us a taster of a red wine we were curious about. All in all the whole evening was unforgettable, memorable, fabulous and left us grinning for hours with joy and indelible memories . I will try to go back as soon as possible! It is difficult to find space at the last minute, but I advise anyone who is serious about food to get organised, book in advance , and you won’t regret doing so . I wish I could remember the names of the team members, sommelier and the welcoming manager, but my memory fails me. However, thank you guys, you went above and beyond and it is rare to find such a joyous, competent, and heartwarming service nowadays, so me and my friend both agree you are an incredible asset and a great team. Thank you for...

We had a 11.45am booking and I rang ahead to ask what time the restaurant would open and the gentleman on the phone tells me 11.30am was their first booking. We naturally made the assumption that the opening time was 11.30am. We arrived a few minutes after 11.30am only to be told they weren’t quite ready. We said not a problem at all but were told to come back in 15 minutes. We asked very politely if we could just wait in a corner somewhere as it was raining but were given instant death stares by the manageress and her adjunct. The gentleman then decided to give us a hard time for turning up at 11.30am and said they were just not ready for us. I swiftly reminded him that I rang ahead to ask what time they opened and he himself said to me their first booking was at 11.30am. Had we misunderstood? We didn’t say anything more and very politely enquired if we could have a table instead of counter seats. We were the only two customers in an empty restaurant but were given a table right in front of the main entrance. I asked if we could possibly have another table for two in the corner but was informed by the manageress “that’s not how things work here” which I assumed meant NOT IN THIS LIFETIME. She then proceeded to inform us that we had booked counter seats and NOT a table. I checked my confirmation email as well as the website of the restaurant and found that it was not possible to specify whether one wanted a table or just seats at the counter. It was clearly a fib designed to get us to back off. I didn’t wish to get into yet another unpleasant exchange because we realised immediately what the main issue was. We both sensed rather distressing vibes/undercurrents from the staff which we attributed to the fact that we were of the wrong skin colour. This would have been our second visit and we sensed it the first time round already but said nothing at all. We had thought we were just being sensitive. The management made it abundantly clear in more ways than one that given a choice they would rather not have our custom. It all became a tad unpalatable given the exchanges so I then made a decision to just leave and cancel our reservation only to find that they weren’t planning to refund the deposit until I made a point in ensuring it would happen right in front of me and not have to take a leap of faith.

I never bothered to write a review after our first visit as the food was infinitely better than the service. Any review would have done a huge injustice to the kitchen. As this was a second visit it would be remiss of us not to call a spade a spade. We visit 4-6 restaurants a week and we cannot recall having had a similar experience elsewhere in any part of London. Just most...