Nikkis Bar - Shoreditch — Restaurant in London

NOT a great place for large groups or birthday celebrations!

We regrettably reserved an area in Nikki's Bar Shoreditch for 20 guests, to celebrate our friends birthday. We payed Nikki's Bar £100 upfront for the reservation and we were assured we would receive the deposit back as a bar tab on arrival.

We arrived at around 4pm in good spirits, ordering a drink each from the bar which we payed for in cash. We then moved downstairs to explore the rest of the venue.

After around 30 minutes at Nikki's we went to the bar and attempted to order more drinks for our group, we wanted to toast my friends 30th Birthday and his recent engagement.

This is when things turned sour..😣

We were told by the bar staff that we were not allowed to buy more than one drink at a time for our group and we all had to purchase our drinks separately.

After agreeing to this bizarre rule, we were then advised that certain members of our group looked intoxicated and we were all only allowed to purchase bottled water from the bar at a ridiculous price!

Although every member of our group was over 28 years of age, we felt belittled and patronised by the bar staff and the manager.

When informing the management that we would like to vacate the venue because of this minor issue, we were told we could not claim back the £100 deposit. And we would have to call the sales team!

After a long conversation with the manager (who was very polite) they agreed to give us our deposit back in cash so we could move on and enjoy the rest of our day in London.

This was such a disappointment for us as we have never visited the bar before and relied on Nikki's to accommodate our group as it states that its "good for big groups"

We wasted an hour in the Nikkis Bar Shoreditch, in which we all felt devalued as customers. We left the bar and crossed the road to a place called KiKi's directly opposite. We were welcomed in and enjoyed alcoholic drinks on the roof terrace. We also took full advantage of their spacious bar and pool table. We thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the day in London and surprisingly we were not accused of being intoxicated or advised to drink water by any other bar we visited! What a load of rubbish! Scam!

Nikki's Bar Shoreditch

• Atmosphere 5/10 • Service 3/10 • Bar policy 1/10

Huge disappointment!!

KiKi's bar...

Booked drag bottomless brunch two of my friend’s shared birthday on a Saturday in June, needless to say, the atmosphere was truly well in place. The other guests present in the restaurant were attending the bottomless brunch at the same given time as my group. The setting was near enough full, and most were women that were celebrating hen do’s and other birthdays in nearly all tables, and a shoutout for each celebrant by the host. The security guard was really inviting, and so were the staff on floor, as well as Harun the bartender. All were very friendly, knowledgeable regarding food items and attentive in serving drinks to all tables across the restaurant when it needed close to refilling. The dj/host played cheesy pop songs throughout our time, belter ones of course haha, and introduced a couple of games throughout to interact and engage the audience, such as dress up drag with the given props.

We had to preorder a meal when booking, as it gets prepared and served at a certain time for the entire guests. I ordered the sweet chilli pulled pork burger with fries on the side, sauces requested. There are also GF and vegan options too. The meat is tender and flavourful, the fries were decently seasoned, nothing special. I bought a cake in to surprise my friends after the meal, which Aissa helped prepare and serve accordingly, and also sang happy birthday, which was really sweet of her. She also prepared a takeaway box which she wrote for one of my friends who was not able to attend. All in all, a good atmosphere, good vibes, nice entertainment, welcoming and nice team, service is flawless. Drinks were spot on. Thank you Aissa and the team...

This cocktail bar used to be me and my friends jam! We would always have exciting new drinks to try and the atmosphere was second to none. The place would always be full and the amazing cocktails flowing.

Understandably Covid has changed a lot for this industry however changing the menu and making it so difficult for people to book is the reason I’m now giving it 2 stars.

The bar needs to allow people who haven’t booked because there was clearly space for more people but it got to about 11.30 and we kinda felt the vibe going and tbh we all kinda wanted to leave which is not like me and my friends at all! We used to be gutted when it was kicking out time.

The most disappointing thing was the menu, no flaming zombie or speciality cocktails? It’s lost it’s edge! I was watching my friends ordering their cocktails and there was nothing special about them really. Not to mention the fact back in the day 3 cocktails at Nikki's would have you swinging around a pole but definitely not anymore.. 14 of us all mentioned that the alcohol content had definitely gone down!

I feel sad writing this review! I never thought I would not like Nikki’s bar or the whole adventure bar group but I hate to say it things have changed!! Take from that...