Fire & Fromage at Jimmy's Pop-up — Restaurant in London

I got duped. I purchased a NYE ticket through Design My Night and it turns out to be a very poor decision on my part. Not my first bad experience with DMN, in this case it seems little deceptive wording on their part. The experience as far as I understood included all you can drink, apparently that was not applicable to the ticket I purchased, which came with a welcome glass of mulled wine, a coupon for a meal from their street food menu. It's supposed to include canapes but so far I haven't been offered any. On to the food itself. I am from Montreal, a food Mecca. London still isn't there, though they hope to be. All street food I have had in London has been marginal at best. Jimmy's Igloos & Lodge has been no different. I would go so far to say the best street food in London isn't as good as Montreal's worse. From the coupon I had a Raclette burger and Aspen Fries. The burger was dry, not particularly warm straight off the grill and their choice of fresh home pickle (sounds good doesn't it), a vinegary cucumber might qualify, but really that one flavorful overwhelmed everything else, there was no harmonizing of flavours. Every street food location I have been to acts like they are the cats pyjamas, and that what they are serving up qualifies as premium. The Aspen Fries, too stodgy, too salty, and the use of truffle oil and Parmesan doesn't work, again same issue, it lacks imagination to tie the flavours in a meaningful way. So overall very disappointed, I feel that the location for watching the fireworks was ok, but somewhat obscured. I don't think even at £75 that my ticket was worth the admission, I gave up a £10 ticket that was general admission to the fireworks and I am feeling the sting of the mistake. If I come back next year, I wouldn't choose this again. Any time of the year I think that you'd be disappointed with the food at Jimmy's, go to Tesco's just as good for a fraction of the cost. A quick word of why I am qualified to discuss the quality of the food. I have a degree in professional cooking and restaurant management, and previously worked in one of Montreal's finest French restaurants, I am not expecting that quality, but it should at least be better than McDonald's, they for what it's worth know how the work flavours together into complex yet...

Service is completely dire - would advise going somewhere else.

Pre-booked a while ago for myself and my daughter as a treat, it’s pretty expensive for what it is but we enjoyed the same experience at the Somerset House pop up last year.

Pre-food and drinks had been ordered and paid for. Ordered Champagne for us both; it was mediocre, I’m not even sure it was Champagne. You have to keep going up to the bar area for cheese, not a fondue like last year. The reason for the dire rating is the service - it’s non existent and comes with extra attitude. The staff at the cheese area are more interested in chatting to each other than asking customers if they want anything else, had to ask for refills of salad, cheese, water etc by going up to bar.

The young couple next to us were clearly on a date, after 1 hour 1 member of staff told them their time was up and they had to leave, no matter that they had also paid for marshmallows and had been there for 1 hour only when you book and pay for a 1.5 hour experience which we know because we got there before them. No apology, the waitress realised they’d ordered marshmallows and proceeded to chuck us off our table instead so they could sit and toast their mashmallows. There’s no discreet polite reminder just ‘you need to leave now’. We sat in the bar for 3/4 of an hour afterwards, there was no one else coming in, we could’ve stayed at the table.

-100 stars for the bar tender who served us a cocktail in a naff plastic half pint glass in the bar, we politely asked for it to be put in a plastic cocktail glass. Was told no, otherwise everyone will want one, he relented but we were told in no uncertain terms he wanted the cheap white plastic cocktail cup back. Of course we were thinking about taking the cheap white plastic tumbler with us. We were then given an Espresso Martini which had lots of bits of ice in it, so asked for a refund on the cocktails, as we’d had enough of the awful service by then.

Gave all this feedback to the onsite manager whilst the bar tender stared at us whilst smoking in the (outside) bar area.

Attitudes of some members of staff ruined our experience and I’m sure that of the young couple next to us. My advise - avoid and go to Somerset...

We ate on the pop up`s 2nd day, very much in its infancy and its a great concept, stunning location, staff were great and it attracts some great clientele too. We made instant friends with the two parties sat alongside us. I LOVE the endless potatoes and bread and the raclette was beautiful - although we failed the challenge of more than three visits for more cheese! I will say, as its in its infancy, there are a couple of things that'll need attention. Firstly, the smoke builds up in the shelter and was blinding at times. Our eyes were bloodshot and we were off to the theatre after our meal and stunk out most of the stalls! It was so smokey we had to bag our clothes up as soon as we walked in the frontdoor that night (6 hours later) and shower before touching anything at home. If there was a smokeless burner/fuel that would be a huge benefit. Also, before booking we asked if this meal package was suitable for a vegetarian. We were told we could swap out the cured meats for veg and we'd be well looked after) That was lovely. We still got the bottomless potatoes and bread as standard. Lush. However, the marshmallows that formed part of the smores were not vegetarian and there was no alternative so it was just a biscuit for me (although these were proper lush). There was also some confusion over the definition of vegetarian and vegan as it was pointed out a few times that there was chocolate in the cookies! I loved that it was in its infancy and new to us but did feel as the first table, we were not given the whole experience - our mulled wine was served in paper cups where as the neighbouring tables had funky tin mugs! Overall, well worth a visit. We loved it. Couple of adjustments that we're confident will be made as they all seemed to really want to make sure our time there was the best...