Hunan — Restaurant in London

Similarly to some other reviews I found the food very underwhelming for the price.

My husband and I are foodies who have lived in various Asian countries and in now living in London we love to try out new Asian restaurants in the hunt for something unexpected, which is what I had hoped for from Hunan after receiving the cook book. I liked the concept of “we choose the menu for you” and multiple courses as it means that for a special occasion dinner for 2 you can have a Chinese meal with the range of tastes you would expect at a round table family dinner, which otherwise wouldn’t be available.

The food felt like all your favourite UK Chinese takeaway restaurant classics from 1997… but just marginally better, and I really Do mean marginally. I got the impression that none of the other diners felt like we did. They seemed very impressed by dishes such as “Chinese dumpling” and “crispy aromatic duck” and “egg fried rice”. They did not mind the over use of shaoxing rice wine and corn flour in many dishes. They did not mind paying £170/head for the privilege of this food. Idid notice that at least in our section of the restaurant there was now a single guest of Easy Asian appearance. Most other diners appeared to be American or form continental Europe. There is no Chinese on the menu and I don’t think the restaurant is catering to people from Asia. This shows in the food, service, music (overly loud remixes of early 00s hits), wine selection.

The waiters did not appear knowledgeable about the food providing names such as the ones given above, not providing information about ingredients or regional providence of the dish etc except on one occasion where we were told that the lamb was form the Lake District. Our waiter was very keen to upsell us on wine (we aren’t big drinkers) and repeatedly didn’t listen to requests and questions.

The food was so disappointing that at one point I started laughing, and as a result. The Maitre’d came to ask is if everything was ok. I commented that i was disappointed with both the food and the service and the Maitre’d apologised and offered to send for more dishes from the kitchen. I accepted this offer and commented that it would be nice as we had come for my birthday. We were then given some sparkling wine and a copy of the cook book. The additional dishes were similar to the earlier ones. One dish of crispy lamb was reasonable. Two other dishes (maybe black cod in a Chinese vinegar reduction and “pork in a bag”) were actually inedible. The other entirely forgettable.

Desert was a choice between the overly sweet apple/banana/toffee fried thing and vanilla ice cream (sounded and looked sickly!) and “red bean pancake, green tea ice cream” - again very disappointing. Ice cream was clearly not made on sight, pancake was overly fried mochi-like rice dough with a prawn toast like sesame finish. There was also a coconut jelly which was ok.

The Maitre’d knocked 40% off the bill. I had the impression that they had received this kind of comment before.

In summary - I can imagine how when the restaurant opened in the 1980s it was impressive. The concept would have been novel, access to Chinese foods beyond the regular take-away joint would have been extremely limited at this time. But in the last 40+ years (and especially in the last 10) the Asian dining scene in London has exploded. Quality and variety now available in other London boroughs doesn’t seem to have impacted this restaurant in Pimlico- which seemed popular with local residents with a clear affection for what I found to be a truly disappointing dining experience.

I would not recommend this restaurant. Save your money and...

Ive been here before but not for some time. I booked relatively late notice for my wifes birthday and they were amazing in slotting us in. They were also kind enough to get us the window table which was a really lovely bonus (we did not ask - was entirely their initiative). The reviews that talk about chaotic service or poor English speaking staff seem very unfair from what we saw this time and previously. Sure - most are Chinese staff and not speaking English as their first language but frankly in a chines restaurant i think that's a good thing and they all try incredibly hard to look after you. the floor manager (I didn't get his name) was a star also - when they didn't have one of the main course options he brought us both complimentary glasses of wine to apologise. Not that we had even slightly complained about this or necessarily needed the extra wine (we'd already had ordered a lovely bottle of red and half a white- it was a gesture that was extremely warmly received by us.

The food is just amazing - you cover so much ground over what seems to be an endless stream of courses. When you're about to burst they then remind you that you are only then going to receive your main course. if it wasn't quite so delicious you would not be able to eat it but its just so incredibly delicious....your body seems to find space for more.

we had the following courses: chicken lettuce wrap, xiao long bao, chive cake, prawn dumplings, pork tongue and ear salad, crispy bean, chilli cuttlefish, cabbage salad, pork in a bag, beef morning glory, steamed scallops, frogs legs with bamboo shoots, clams with thai basil, crispy lamb, seabream, quails egg, crispy duck with pancakes (as main), puddings

Its not cheap but actually food alone is £70 quid per head which seems amazing value for what you get. The very interesting and reasonably priced wine list helps enormously on total meal costs too. You can pick up some really lovely wines for £40-70 per bottle that would be 30-50% more for the same in most comparable restaurants. if you go relatively steady on the wine front, keeping in that bracket (you can of course spend hundreds per bottle if you so choose) you can have a lovely meal with plenty of wine for under £250 including service and for 2 people.

If you are open minded to experiment (that's key given the lack of menu - you're entirely in their hands) and like to have top end food in a relatively informal and entirely unpretentious surroundings, supporting a local business too... you just cannot get better.

I'm incredibly grateful for the staff for making it such a gorgeous evening. They didn't just stick some cheap candle in a pudding -- they brought us the pudding out with a full sparkler rocket going off in it and several staff coming over singing happy birthday too. Just lovely. Thank you...

Very disappointing experience. In fact it was so disappointing that both my partner and I could not wait for the dinner service to end - we did not leave half way because we were hoping for the next courses to redeem the disappointment or at least prove us wrong in some way that this restaurant leaves up to its reputation.

I must point out that both my partner and I are regular dinners out and about at establishments at varying levels and we both appreciate and understand what should be expected accordingly.

The extended set menu sounded fun and something that would appeal to me because I get to try out most dishes is small portions - I have to say that most starters and main course were not freshly prepared and mostly reheated. The order of the dishes was not carefully planned and in my opinion it came in odd timings with varying and lengthy intervals in between servings. There were 18 dishes and the 2 / 3 sauces were ‘recycled’ in between dishes. At some point all fish dishes with sauce just start tasting the same… most fish and meat dishes were just slightly over cooked and not a dish has stood out. The food presentation was acceptable, nothing remotely entertaining to the eyes - at least the plates were consistently matching.

The service was not good. The waiters were not attentive at all, we had to call out for water reorders, which is something you would at least expect from a restaurant with this price range. The waiters had no finesse, they would barge in whenever they were ready to serve the next dish interrupting out conversations without any manners. My partner and I are very comfortable with chopsticks, but not once we were asked if we needed cutlery. I understand this is Chinese cuisine, but it cannot be expected that everyone is comfortable with chopsticks so the courtesy of offering cutlery needs to happen.

The restaurant is set in a lovely part of London and the ground floor town house decor is trying to resemble a finer, cleaner and quieter version of a similar Chinese restaurant found in a western Chinatown. I appreciate the intention but the ambience has once again ruined by the staff. Narrow space as expected but the staff clearly had no awareness of the way they should conduct themselves, at the end of the night they were just conglomerated in the narrow passage and chatting away.

Overall, this was not a good experience - not for the money paid and even if it was half the price I would still think it is not worth it and will not recommend it to anyone. There are many better places in London for Chinese cuisine at a much higher standard and without...