Louie — Restaurant in London

After a truly stressful week and looking ahead to another even more stressful, Louie managed to stop time for me. The food was so delicious that each bite was an experience in mindfulness. I have never been good at silencing my thoughts and for the first time in a long time I remembered what is like being present with every taste, with every flavor…

We started off with the raw:

The Maldon Oyster was a fresh drink of ocean that lingered in the mouth with the fragrance of an open beach in the sunlight.

Then the crab cake. Crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside accompanied by a black taramasalata. The combination of textures was exquisite. For someone like me, too lazy to eat crab, I could appreciate the amount of work behind each delicious string of crustacean muscle.

The tuna crostini was the dish that made me realize that I had been in tension since forever. No massage, no Pilates, no swim in the ocean. I needed to taste de combination of the perfect fried bread with the sesame seared tuna to have a transcendental experience where the rest of the world was gone for the time I was biting, and chewing and perceiving every texture, every flavor… the crispy, the creamy, the fishy, the spicy…

And then the Gumbo came. “This dish summarizes our concept” they said. What a summary! I recognized the prawn, it tasted like home, but then… the sauce… the spices… the Andouille Sausage! That made me travel even farther away to places I had never been before. I thought I knew the “mar i muntanya”, but these spices were no Mediterranean, they were creole.

The big finale was the BBQ lobster. The creole spice butter sauce… At this point I don’t think I have words anymore, only a .gif of Homer Simpson drooling.

Flashforward to the post-apocalyptic future.

Is 2047. Climate change has transformed Spain into an arid desert, and we spent most of the day in caves to escape the heat and the blinding light. I seat on a rock and doodle with a stick on the ground and remember that night at Louie, tasting the petit choux filled with lemon cream while the speakeasy jazz transported me...

Average food, shockingly disappointing service on an empty night. We were late and called to let the concierge know, who was lovely and accommodating. Unfortunately it was only downhill from there: we ordered and after 45 minutes of no food arriving and zero contact from the staff, we asked the waitress about our order (noting the table next to the us ordered at the same time and was already getting the bill). The waitress returned and let us know the order has never been properly inputted into the system by her colleague but we should be rest assured (?) if she was the one taking it, there would be no issue. We asked for the bill as we were very hungry and keen to go somewhere else where we’d be taken seriously as customers. A minute later the waiter at fault came to our table and started to beg us not to leave, first standing up and then on his knees. We stayed and the food came approximately 15 minutes later which is fine, overall quite bland but not bad (also not good). We got the lobster roll, turbot and truffle pasta. I made the mistake of asking for another glass of wine which as expected never arrived and I had to ask again, so my food got cold before the drink finally arrived (and then we received another without asking, which you might expect would be an apology on the house but was promptly snatched back from our table as the waitstaff made yet another mistake). When my friend finished her meal, and I had eaten approximately 15% of my fish, another waitress approached to try to take our plates. My appetite for the average overpriced turbot was pretty much gone then, so I asked the staff to please put it in a takeaway box for my dog to enjoy. To my surprise my request was declined as they ran out of containers, so I asked to just put it in a paper towel or similar since it’s for my pup. Of course at the end of this farce got the full bill with service charge, unable to flag a waiter to finally pay despite the restaurant being completely empty. Overall APPALLING service and I strongly recommend to avoid this place...

I'm not one to leave reviews often, but I was so disappointed at the food and service last night that I just have to. I made a booking for 10pm, arrived on time and was seated promptly. Everything fine at first, Drinks ordered - had to remind about my drink that I'd ordered as it didn't come first time round. We put an order in for starters and main at the same time. Starters came, small portion but all fine. There was then a 45-55 min wait between getting the starters to the mains coming, in which time we had ordered another drink for the table which had not come and had to be reminded about. Our waiter did not come to us to check up or see if we needed anything in that time. Once the food did come, a few things were either cold or lukewarm on the plates. One item in one of the dishes was raw, which the waiter told us abruptly "that's how it's served."

I made a point to say that the fries were very cold, but as the kitchen had closed by this point, there wasn't much that could be done. Apart from removing it from the bill at the end.

There was then a further wait after the plates had been collected from the table before our waiter just came over with the bill. Upon having a look, the fries had not been removed so I spoke with the manager.

The manager was completely understanding and very accommodating, it was the case that they were short staffed that evening - however, it did cause issues with the quality of our night as a result. He then did correct the bill and offer some drinks on the house, but the mood had died for us at that point. A shame, as the restaurant was somewhere my girlfriend had been before and enjoyed - we were celebrating, but it just didn't deliver a memorable experience...