Leicester Square Kitchen — Restaurant in London

I had high hopes for the Leicester Square Kitchen. It's a really nice looking restaurant. We had a 3 course pre-theatre menu, so ordered two drinks, two small plates, two mains and two desserts. Our drinks were really lovely (I had the Diplomatico) but came with huge pieces of ice that actually made drinking a slight challenge until we removed some of it. For the small plates, we ordered the duck and the "seared avocado and cancha". Both came with a large amount of salad leaves (seared avocado was advertised as a salad, duck was not). There was maybe 5 tiny pieces of avocado in the salad; we played "hunt the avocado". I put more in an average taco at home. There was more grapefruit than avocado, and plenty of cancha (toasted large corn the size of hominy). It was overdressed in the dressing. The duck, on the other hand, despite being overwhelmed by the amount of salad, was phenomenal. It was perfectly seasoned and crispy and the papaya chili dressing was well balanced and brought out the taste of the duck. So good. For mains, we had the sliders and the risotto. Both were really good but the risotto was the clear winner between the two. I was slightly apprehensive about it because I'm a philistine who doesn't really like truffles - but the earthiness was again well balanced against the chili and other ingredients in the risotto. The sliders were great and actually had what most closely resembled Mexican chorizo I've had in the UK. Again, good spices. For dessert, we had the arroz con leche and the taco xocolatl. The taco was so good - the chocolate mole was good and unusual and had a good companion in both the agave salsa and sour cream ice cream. The arroz con leche was good... But I don't know if I'd advertise something as arroz con leche if you only give a tablespoon or so of rice in the midst of a sea of mango "pico de gallo". The mango was lovely (cilantro despite advertised wasn't seen) and a good pairing with the rice, but it would have been nice to have more equally balanced numbers. For the amount given, we were only given four chips, which is a bit sad as they were lovely. Lastly... The service in this place is the real letdown. I rarely, if ever, complain about service because I've been there myself. The house was about half full. We were seated for a good while before being brought our menus, got some of the most haphazard drinks recommendations known to humankind, had to ask twice for our drinks (which came after the food, I think), and had to ask 5 times (yes 5) for our bill at the end. Literally everyone around us, were brought their bills first and then we had to chase around and pay. We were honest about our curtain time; having to chase the bill repeatedly and then chase to actually pay in order to make the theatre was not great. The waiter quite literally walked by 5-6 times without doing much (I've worked service) before he brought the bill then absolutely disappeared when several tables were ready to pay. So odd. Part of me thought it was to ensure they got their "recommended" gratuity. Not great. If there weren't many restaurants in the West End, I might return, but as there's so many great ones out there - I...

We arrived for our meal and was sat down, with our drinks ordered fairly quickly..... We then waited a fair amount of time before we could order. We ordered from the set menu.

Starters eventually came out, but only four of the 6 dishes. We waited patiently (luckily they were not hot meals as would have been cold).... After 8-10 minutes we asked where the other two meals were and they then came out..... As an apology we were given a bowl of essentially Doritos and not much of an apology.

For the mains the same happened again although not such a delay as the starters, but we were still left waiting a considerable time for all the dishes to arrive, and these dishes were hot so had started to become cold.

As for the food everyone enjoyed their food, although the amount of spice in all the dishes took some people by surprise..... Maybe there can be a key indicating the approximate level of spice?

Due to the speed of service we had to cancel our last course due to commitments elsewhere unfortunately.

We then had trouble paying for our meal and almost had to grab someone to pay..... Despite standing patiently with our coats on

Personally if I had been the one paying (someone paid for all as needed to go quickly) I wouldn't have left as much of a service tip(as you take 12.5% straight away) as I didn't feel the service was of a good standard...... Which is a shame, and having a wife who used to work in this line of work, I fully appreciate what tips mean to the staff etc and how they can make a difference.... But I feel this sometimes is the only way a company can maybe see feedback in how their...

This restraunt had a really nice atmosphere with ambient lighting and we were initially pleased with where we had chosen based on this. It is the type of place which allows you to wind down and feel a little bit sophisticated, the waiting service was to a good standard. We ordered from a set menu but still got a small choice within that menu. We thought that this menu made the food sound really complicated but had no simple explanation of what each dish was, we had to ask (which wasn't a problem) and we were expecting to be blown away by some posh nosh. At this point we were more than happy with our choices so far but when every dish came out we felt it was not to the standard that it should be for this type of restaurant. For me the food was a bit like stuff we could knock up quickly at home but poshed up a bit with either a flower or some spicy sauce (which wasn't unpleasant). The best dish was one that we managed to combine. My wife had some chicken wings with spicy sauce and I had a crispy duck salad which were way too simple on thier own but adequate together. We then had 3 x micro burgers on a posh plate which tasted great but 2 with a little something to compliment them would have been much better. Lastly I was excited by the sound of mojito soaked fruit with ice cream but it was watery and felt Sub standard for this type of eatery. All in all a nice place with effort on the decor but the cuisine could...