Firebird. Restaurant & Wine Bar — Restaurant in London

I was talking recently with a someone who runs a local restaurant about how it seems increasingly unusual to be made to feel welcome when dining out, how it more often than not feels as though you are nothing more than someone to get in and out of the door so they can move onto the next customer's money. His remark was that it seems like the hospitality has gone missing from many establishments trading in the food and beverage sector, and that this doesn't seem to even matter in such densely populated, and highly competitive urban centres like London. Well surely it is precisely those factors which mean it should matter. If a place isn't making its diners feel welcomed then they have no right to remain in business when there are so many other choices on hand.

So we come to Firebird. We ate here early last Saturday evening (as a pre theatre option) and I was really looking forward to it, having heard good things in numerous reviews. We arrived if anything a little early (booking was for 17:00 but we arrived at 16:50), nonetheless they were happy to seat us, which was a promising start. Sadly it all went downhill from this point. Firstly the person handling front of house asked if they could take our jackets, we both said we were fine but they then stated "It is quite warm in the dining room as you'll be next to the fire so you should check them in". Not wanting to get into an argument about retaining our garments having barely crossed the threshold we relented, but this was an odd start. Surely it would have been easier to simply state from the outset that they recommend we check our coats due to the heat of the dining room, and dispense with offering up the illusion of choice in the matter!

On being shown to our table we politely asked if we could have a different table on the end, slightly away from the only 2 other diners in the restaurant, whom our allocated table was next to. This has always been a request I've made if I have arrived early at a restaurant and there have been very few diners there, it seems reasonable for the staff to accommodate a table preference, after all, "first come, first served" is a pretty universally observed maxim. Usually I find that such requests are accommodated if possible and if not there it is generally dealt with in a tactful manner which doesn't leave us feeling short changed. However on this occasion the same person who had just dealt with our coats simply came back and said it would not be possible, offering up some unclear reasoning about not being able to put tables together or pull them apart. None of which made sense, given it was just a different table for 2 we were requesting.

After that point we were both pretty irritated, and all we wanted to do really was have our food and leave, which we did as briefly as possible. The food itself was fine, although nothing spectacular, we had chicken breast in a bacon jam, and monkfish in a vegetable stew for our mains, and while the chicken was nice enough, the monkfish wasn't as good as I'd expected, lacking some of the texture and succulence that I associate with the fish when it is really prepared well. The winelist is reasonable, although of the 2 glasses I ordered the Sybille Kuntz Riesling Trocken was a little warmer than I'd have liked, and definitely should have been chilled for a touch longer.

You don't go out to dinner expecting to have to fight to keep your coat, or have your request for a different table treated so indifferently so I felt in little mood to feedback any of this at the time as I simply wanted to leave. But they have that feedback now, what they do with it is of little concern to me as, in a city with a multitude of far better options I'll not...

Stopped in for dinner on October 1st and it was, without a doubt, one of the highlights from my trip to London. My girlfriend and I were in town for a whirlwind visit, and this was our only night out to ourselves, so we wanted to make it count. We're both so glad we chose Firebird.

The menu intrigued me before ever stepping foot inside the space and, once I was in, my expectations were met in every way. The ambience is exactly what you'd want for a night out on the town or for celebrating a special occasion. The servers are charming and engaging, and are definitely hitting their stride in terms of tailoring the experience (Firebird has apparently only been open for a few months).

Our main server, Solomiia, was so lovely: knowledgeable, warm, and super helpful with her recommendations -- and completely blew us away with her recommendation of a dark Rose which was delicious and perfectly complimented the entirety of our meal. My only real nitpick about service would apply to another server who dropped off our first course and simply asked, "did you order this?" without describing the item -- an item we would have never had the chance to see before to confirm... which caused an off-putting moment of awkwardness when I had to ask him three times, "what dish is this?" -- but it honestly is just that: a nitpick. We all laughed it off, and the rest of the night was smooth.

The cocktails were a hit. My girlfriend had the Jasmine Martini which, according to her, is the best martini she's ever had, and I had a delicious and fragrant Negroni. The food was delicious and, clearly, a personal and inspired take on Mediterranean. Again, talking about nitpicks, the Porchetta was a tad overcooked and dry on the outside -- which was a real shame as all the flavours were there once you get to the more sumptuous middle. We did have a schedule to keep, however, so we opted to say nothing and enjoy as is.

My only real suggestion would be to have physical copies of the drink menus or a Wifi connection that can be accessed for people like us who don't have data while in the UK. We couldn't access that particular menu via QR code and had to rely on our server's tablet to see what was what.

All in all, this place has all the makings of a hit restaurant. We wish everyone at Firebird all of the success and cannot wait to pop in again on our next visit...

Given how vastly different our experience was to the other reviews, it almost feels like we were at a different restaurant.

Want to start with a few points: 1. We really wanted to love this place 2. We gave direct feedback on the night, privately the next day and a week later. In all three cases, the feedback was unacknowledged so I am now posting it as it's been over a week so quite apparent we won't be hearing back from them.

A group of four of us had dinner at Firebird, we are all pretty discerning in regards to quality and standard (but also realistic) and the unanimous consensus was that the food at Firebird was bland and not enjoyable. Nobody finished their meal (because they didn't want to) and everybody went home and ate something there.

The menu had promise, the food had no seasoning, no flavour (apart from things with natural flavour- like halloumi) and the service was somewhat questionable. It was remarked on that the waiter only seemed interested in addressing my husband, the only man at the table. (This was picked up on by my husband who usually is oblivious to this kind of thing.)

We gave the feedback about the disappointing food on the spot and while it seemed as if the waiter relayed this to one of the owners (both of whom were on site) nobody approached us to a) try and get more information b) apologise for our sub par experience c) offer us dessert or an aperitif or anything ...anything to demonstrate "hey, we value our clients and the experience they have at our restaurant."

The same goes for when I gave feedback the next day and my husband a week later- no response. Not great- customer service is a key ingredient for success in hospitality and their lack of it is frankly unacceptable, given that they are marketed as high end and the prices certainly reflect that (we spent between £100-£150 each)

I have no issue paying for good quality, but I do have an issue for paying bland food and disinterested service. Had they made any effort to reconcile our experience I would've been willing to give the restaurant another chance- perhaps our bland food was a mistake, a one off. Given their attitude, I'll spend my hard earned money elsewhere, where...