Novellino Bistro (Kosher Meat Restaurant Golders Green) — Restaurant in London

Please note that this refers to the Novellino Bistro at 111 Golders Green Road, not Novellino Restaurant at 103 Golders Green Road, on the corner of Armitage Road – quite different despite the same name. A bistro is defined as a small restaurant serving moderately priced, simple meals in a modest setting. Small it isn’t: a palatial venue that would not be out of place in Park Lane or Piccadilly, with subdued lighting provided by exotic, glowing cluster lamps. It all screamed out ‘posh, classy and expensive’. So much for the décor. As for service, it was, let’s say, acceptable – certainly not friendly or welcoming. The menu? Soup of the day was £9.00. Veggie Spring Rolls £12.00; fish and chips will set you back £27.00; lamb chops £45.00; a mixed grill platter for two £100.00. A ‘bistro beef sandwich’ comes at £28.00! So much for bistros serving ‘moderately priced meals’! As neither of us who went there had won the lottery, we looked at the Special Lunch Menu – a snip at £15.00 but with an added 15 per cent service charge. The choice was mostly burgers or meat in pita bread but for an extra £5.00 you could have a salt beef sandwich. You also could choose chips, rice, small salad or mashed potato. Then a drink and a scoop of ice cream. I chose the salt beef sandwich with a small salad. A big mistake. A few scraps of beef between two slices of ordinary white bread, and a salad served in an ashtray-sized dish. My friend was not over-impressed with his burger. In summary – décor superb, food disappointing and service polite but unremarkable - and certainly not worth a service charge of 15 per cent. And if you dare to post a less than adulatory review on Google, you get a Basil Fawlty aggressive response from the owner. To someone who objected to the 15 per cent service charge, he said that it was mentioned on the menu, and they shouldn’t have eaten there if there was any objection. He also rebukes a reviewer for posting an adverse review without speaking to the manager first! I guess he wanted to avoid being abused in real life rather than on the web… If you want to try the Bistro for yourself, then hurry up. A glance at the records at Companies House showed that at least the solitary director is a realist. In May 2024 he applied to have Novellino Bistro Ltd struck off the register and dissolved. Ten days later, Companies House issued a Gazette (ie, warning) that the company would be struck off and the assets seized and passed to the Crown. In June, the strike off was suspended but the present status is that there is an active proposal to strike it off and the accounts are overdue by more than five months! It's sad that so many excellent kosher restaurants in the area of Golders Green and Hendon have closed down. Dizengoff, and Milk and Honey are gone, and Maxim’s is closed indefinitely. But the White Fish restaurant in Hendon seems to have re-opened. So if the Novellino Bistro disappears, that should offer a good alternative. But if you don’t insist on kosher food and like salt beef, go to the one of the legendary B & K restaurants, in Edgware or Hatch End. Terrific friendly service, excellent value and a friendly, intimate atmosphere. That could truly be called a bistro.

Roll on the abuse, Mr Manager... Predictably the manager has now added his rambling essay. Just read it and you will understand why the place is run so badly. I have written many reviews on the web, most of them adulatory. The other Novellino is great. But the manager of this place seems like Basil Fawlty - obsessed with defending the indefensible. Just look at some of the other reviews. I...

Edit: The response from the owner is a straight up LIE and tells us we made the right call to leave. We never asked to be by the window. I excused myself to go and change my baby in the toilet. I never said I don’t feel well either; what a strange lie to make up… You may want to check your cash register whilst you’re at it because your staff are dishonest but it’s clear you harbor that kind of environment. I left the bathroom and my sister and dad had paid for the coffee he drank, cancelled the order and said they felt awkward too and wanted to leave after the waitress acted like anything we ordered was too much effort. What a joke of a business. Dark, dim and full of liars. Wouldn’t surprise me if it was a front for something else. Glad we avoided this place and will be warning others we know around here too. Wanna feel like you’re at a funeral? Well try this place out. The waitress wins the award for the most miserable demeanour I’ve encountered. We were nothing but polite, friendly and patient but we were made to feel very uncomfortable. We went to the place across the road and the atmosphere was completely different and we’re glad we decided to leave and change restaurants. Looking at the response from the owner to other negative reviews I can see where the bad attitude comes from. So yeah, who died?...

This place has a great ambiance, and is very spacious and clean. Our food was pleasant. It tasted good, but was lacking the flavour combinations that some new restaurants are offering. We were disappointed they were not serving the steak, which my husband specifically came for. To be fair, they said they were not serving it because it had sold out and they needed to age the steak.

The service could use work. We were passed between 2-3 different wait staff, all who seemed to not be communicating with each other. Our mains came out very quickly, but once we had asked for the dessert menu, nobody brought it or attended to our table for at least 10 minutes. We actively asked for the bill, to which a different waiter brought over appetizer bread. Finally we received the bill, and had no goodbye from any of the staff including the owner/manager who was by the exit!

(Please note we understand the restaurant is fairly new, and there will be issues, but it was not overly busy during this visit) There were a few other teething problems such as: an alarm going off, the lights being turned from dim to full lighting a few times, and heavy smoke coming from the kitchen.

This place is worth a visit, but if you’re only in London for one night, I would not recommend this as...