Le Salon Privé — Restaurant in London

A little magic in Twickenham – This restaurant is a little gem. High quality French style food at affordable prices. Everything is made and cooked in house except the lovely warm bread from a local bakery. We went on a Groupon Voucher but will return. It has fixed priced 3 course lunch menus Tues-Sat for £20 and dinner menus at £25 from Tues-Thurs. Two courses also available slightly cheaper. There are also imaginative vegetarian menu options. The a la carte menu has wonderful offers like you would find at top French bistros in Paris. It is but a bit pricier but if you are looking for first class cordon bleu cooking at half top restaurant prices, this is your place. It has a wine list to die for. If you want the patron to suggest wines for courses, he will do so. The patron is Gianluca di Monaco who was sous chef for Pierre Koffmann and Heinz Beck and has been head chef for the King of Saudi Arabia. After 25 years in the kitchen, he has stepped out to front of house passing the baton to his former sous chef and 28-year-old understudy, Andrea Sonzobni, who is also Italian. It is simply wonderful French food in a cosy, warm setting. The windows have stunning stain glass to compliment the interior of wooden floors and hand carved panels. French paintings adorn the walls. You can book a private room off the main restaurant for up to 6 people in the main restaurant or if you want to hold a party there are two rooms upstairs seating 22 and 14 people respectively, perfect for a party. It has an inviting ambience with a lively buzz and local feel on the Friday night we went. The father and son next to us had come from Shropshire and Staffordshire to watch rugby and go to this restaurant whenever in town. They ordered the Chateaubriand for two which looked enormous and perfectly cooked. We ordered off the fixed price menu homemade pheasant terrine, with remoulade and pistachio. Full of flavour and perfect texture. The chef explained how time consuming it was to make from fresh pheasant. My only quibble was that you had to order bread separately at £3. My wife had the pan-fried seabass, salsify and crayfish ragout which was perfectly cooked, succulent with a crispy skin. I had pork cheek, pomme puree and lentil and pancetta sauce. Wow, was it tasty. All portions were generous as shown. Side orders are charged at £3.75 extra each with perfectly cooked spinach, sprouting broccoli and the best Gratin dauphinoise at £4.75 either of us had ever tasted to accompany. The desserts are equally flavourful: banana sorbet with dark chocolate buttons and warm prune tart and calvados ice cream ordered by us. A lovely finish to a fantastic meal. It has been there for five years, but get in before you cannot get in....

5th but the last time!

We really looked forward to our meal out without the kids at a restaurant which we would have always recommended to friends but unfortunately NOT ANYMORE!

First impressions Upon being seated after getting my wife her drink I had to wait an age to be asked for my own order even though there was only 3 tables of customers. When asked for our food order we said that we weren't having starters & just mains to which we were told that it would be a long wait going straight to mains. A very strange answer!

Food Bread & Butter - This used to be lovely but now to go with the lovely bread instead of the previous home made pepper Butter they are trying to pass off FAKE SPREADABLE BUTTER! This is obvious because butter when cool is firm & this alternative was soft when cold & a different consistency & of course taste from real butter!

Chateaubriand - We asked for medium rare, it was rare (see picture). We didn't send it back as you cant cook this meal more when it's already sliced. Meat was good quality still thankfully. Spinach (pictured)- A watery mess that wasn't done right to remove the moisture but not the butter!

Bone Marrow Sauce - A very good sauce.

Mustard, Mustard or Mustard (pictured) This was the biggest let down from both waiter & Chef! I asked for Djon, the waiter returned from the kitchen with Wholegrain. I told the waiter that it was wholegrain & that I asked for Djon, he went back to the kitchen & returned from the kitchen with cheap rip off English mustard. I challenged the waiter about this & his words were "the chef said that it's the same as Djon". Obviously I didn't believe this & he looked like he thought the same but after laughing & saying that he should get the chef out to tell us that (to which he ignored), we just asked for the bill.

Wine A good Bordeaux.

A shame of an experience which we really wanted to be like the previous visits but clearly something bad...

I booked a table for 6.30pm to enjoy an evening of good food and fine wine with some friends - we were 4 in total. We arrived pretty much on time, had a lovely starter, main was amazing along with a couple of bottles of good wine. We were waiting for our desserts to be delivered when we were approached by the waitress who said 'chef has asked if you can leave soon please as we have another booking for this able at 8.30' ! I was floored! None of us could actually believe we were being asked to leave less than 2 hours after we had sat down. If we had sat there and ordered nothing I could understand it, but we spent some considerable amount on our meals and we didn't skimp on our wine choice either! Unfortunately this did spoil our evening somewhat, although we did leave as requested after giving them a hefty amount of money for the privilege of being allowed in their restaurant for 2 hours! I would recommend for the food, and the staff were friendly enough, but I think it is totally unacceptable to not be able to stay at the table we had booked for as long as we...