Mriya Neo Bistro — Restaurant in London

Well reviewed online and in the press, my partner (from Ukraine) and I had high hopes for Mriya Neo Bistro. Those hopes were roundly dashed against the improvised pretentiousness of the restaurant, the blandness of the food, and finally by the realisation that we were being conned: paying an inflated price for cheap, ill-conceived dishes.

Inside the "bistro", tables are packed so tightly that neither customers nor staff can manoeuvre. Nothing remotely resembles the crisp tablecloths and stylish decor advertised online. We are led to a basement, which may indeed have been merely a basement yesterday for all the evident haste with which it was turned into a dining room. There is a veneer of snobbishness to the presentation of dishes we can see around us, but everything is shabby and the staff are curt. Cutlery is hurled rather than placed on the table.

A drinks menu promises innovative cocktails. My boulevardier is drinkable but watered down; my partner orders a quince-infused sour, which is mysteriously replaced with an old-fashioned. An easy mistake, we assure the waitress. She assures us in return that this is simply their “vision” for the cocktail. When we point out that their “vision” on the menu contradicts what has been served, we are assured the mistake will be corrected. A minute later, the ominous whirr of an electric whisk is heard. Her drink arrives with stiff, meringue-like peaks at room temperature. It won't be drunk.

Suspicions are raised. If you are charging £13 for a cocktail, at least look up how you should make it—do not simply wield an electric whisk in the direction of the ingredients.

We choose our dishes. My partner naturally grew up eating Ukrainian food, and I have been lucky enough to try some of it myself. The menu promises innovation but seemed relatively conservative to us in everything but price.

The food arrives with contemptuous punctuality—no time is wasted in cooking or assembling at Mriya “neo” “bistro”. Three tiny aspic lollipops sit on my plate, wiggling menacingly. Inside each one is a sparse cluster of beef fibres. I try to pick one up and the stick slides cheerfully out. The accompanying beetroot puree tastes exactly as one would expect an unseasoned beetroot to taste. At least it has a taste, unlike the holodetz itself—a gelid blandness which seems reluctant to leave my mouth. My partner has the herring salad: three buttons of (admittedly flavourful) fish the size of a fingernail resting on top of a complacent vegetal cylinder.

We decide, wrongly, that it is too rude to leave after the starters.

Our mains are equally disappointing but far more insulting. My partner’s beef tongue is edible, at the least, offering little beyond its soft texture and distant echo of the meatiness it likely had when it was first cooked, whenever that was. It comes with a robust ladle of queasily fungal pearl barley. £24 buys me two courgette flowers in which a dessert spoon of beef has been placed. The flowers are tired and colourless, a membrane in which lurk globs of unadorned beef mince.

My partner develops a stomach cramp; we can't determine which of these malevolent dishes (save perhaps the £5 stale bread) is the culprit.

A bit of online research suggests a serious chef set up this menu, but he certainly isn’t cooking here tonight. Our complaints to our waitress fall on stubbornly deaf ears. Around us minute globes of chicken Kyiv orbit, destined for other patrons. £20 buys you six vareniki and the cheapest item on the wine list is a £35 ‘mystery wine’. Paying more for the privilege of knowing what you are buying seems extraordinary. A bottle of cheap lager from Ukraine costs £10: a familiar beer from home offensively rebranded as an expensive import. It dawns on us that Mriya “Neo Bistro” is a scam, profiteering off good will. Their “vision” for Ukrainian cuisine has no creativity or generosity at its heart; dishes are “updated” through reduction in size and increase in price. There is no aptitude for cooking or service on display. Avoid...

Disappointed. Our first impression upon arriving at the restaurant was unpleasant right away. We had made a reservation two weeks in advance, but when we got there, the staff informed us that they didn't have any free tables except for the ones outside in the garden (side note: it was 13 degrees Celsius outside). Despite this, we decided to give it another shot. It took 20 minutes outside to get the menu. The waiter girl was slow, rushed, and forgetful. We asked for a blanket, but she didn't bring it because she had forgotten. While she was writing down our order, she got distracted by another visitor and forgot that we were ordering food, then walked away. The service staff, in general, are highly inexperienced. The girls are young, don't act professionally, make some silly comments, rush to put/remove plates from the table, almost breaking some of them, which just makes you feel uneasy and unable to relax, even after wine.

The food was average, and considering the price we paid, I would rate it lower than a lower-than-average Kyiv restaurant. The borsch was good, but the Chicken Kyiv was dry and "boring". After an hour outside, we were finally allowed to go inside to sit at the small table, which didn't look like it was supposed to be a proper dinner table.

Later, when paying, we realized that one of the items on the receipt was added accidentally (a bottle of wine instead of a glass), which was just awful. The staff does not pay attention to anything. They include service charges in the bill, yet the card terminal asked if we wanted to pay another tip percentage after paying. It feels like we were getting scammed on every occasion.

Overall, there is a massive room for improvement. I wouldn't go here for a few years because the service level for the area and price point is unacceptable. You can do so much with Ukrainian cuisine, but everything was just dull. If you call yourself "neo," you must live up to that standard. This is not how I want my cuisine to be...

It was a wonderful experience. My husband tried Ukrainian dishes for the first time and he especially liked golubtsi and forshmak. Borsch came with lovely pampushkas and something that tasted like pesto but instead of basil it had lots of dill and garlic - we loved it. We shared a bottle of orange wine Arbina, and my husband had sea buckthorn horilka- we were pleasantly surprised with both. Our waitress Vlada was so sweet and answered any questions we had, fully and thoroughly. The atmosphere was really lovely too. As you enter the restaurant , the kitchen is on the display so you can see how everything is prepared. It’s very clean. As you go downstairs to the additional seating area, you pass by the cellar, which is a nice design touch. We were seating downstairs by the window to the outdoor area. Outdoor area looked cozy and apparently gets quite popular on warmer days. It was nice seeing the place get busy- so many non-Ukrainians stopped by for a dinner too, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. It is a place you go to dine, so expect to spend 1.5-2 hours there, especially if it gets busy as you might have to wait a little bit. Since we beat the dinner crowd our food came out quickly and perfectly timed: just as we finished our appetizers, entrees followed. We only really had to wait for a dessert but our drinks were full so we were not in a rush and enjoyed everything about our visit. Thank you Mriya and Vlada for this wonderful experience and we hope to see...