Six by Nico Canary Wharf — Restaurant in London

I've been to Six by Nico many times and have experienced their Mad Hatter, Chippie, Sicily, Trust, and New York menus. All have surprised and delighted, and their newest menu, 72 Hours in Mexico, is no exception.

I started with the Hibiscus and Mezcal Marguerita. The beautifully smoky mezcal balanced the citrusy brightness of the hibiscus, and the colour was beautiful.

The menu started with Tostada, pieces of succulent sweet shrimp poised on top of a crispy blue corn tortilla with burnt cucumber, guacamole and creme fraiche. This was a lovely way to begin the meal even though the dish would have benefited from a squeeze of lime on top to make the individual flavours come alive as a whole.

Next up, the Elote ... a sweetcorn fritter with queso fresco and salsa verde. The fritter was a delight ... lovely sweetness from the corn balanced with a sweet chili heat. The salsa verde and creme fraiche added a creamy earthiness that balanced the dish beautifully.

The Barbacoa was a clever deconstruction that focused on a variety of textures and flavours of onion accompanied by pork crackling. A daring choice since barbacoa is traditionally a meat dish made with goat or lamb. Eaten separately, the onions had distinctive identities that were tangy and sweet, but eaten together with the pork crackling, the dish tasted like a barbacoa that had been slow cooked for hours.

The Caldo de Lubina with sea bass, white bean and chorizo spiced hot broth was an explosion of flavour. The sea bass was cooked perfectly, and floated languidly atop a sea of very spicy broth. So spicy that it blew out my palette. I love the smokiness of chorizo, but I was searching for it in the dish.

The Mole. Mole is usually an intoxicating blend of chilis, spices, chocolate, tomato, and broth, and one of my favourites. The tomato mole had a nice flavour, but I was craving more of an earthy richness to compliment the succulent chicken roulade. The corn tamales were a bit disappointing. I didn't mind the crunchy exterior, but it would have been nice to discover a soft interior of flavourful masa.

The dessert was Pastel Roldan Tres Leches - pecan cake, horchata, tres leches sorbet and citrus. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by this dessert. I love all of these flavours, but they were unbalanced or lacked presence in this dish. The pecan cake was dry, and the crumb on top of the cake gave it an even drier mouth feel nor could I taste pecans. The only presence of horchata that I detected was the flavour of cinnamon in the crumb. Adding some toasted pecans to the cake would have created texture and nuttiness, and brushing the cake with horchata would have added moisture. The tres leches citrus sorbet was light and refreshing albeit a tad icy. The lime gel was overpowering and a bit out of place on the dish.

The wine pairings are always on point, and this menu was no exception. The wines were exquisite on their own, but an alchemy occurred when paired with each dish amplifying the character of both.

The service and the atmosphere in this location is exceptional. The staff are knowledgable, welcoming, and friendly, and the bustling atmosphere is filled with moody textures and contemporary art. I'm looking forward to the next themed menu. It's...

Where to start! Service was very disappointing, we arrived for our booking at 3pm and were told to sit and wait - the front of house member of staff did not even look at us or ask how our day was, nor offer a reason for us having to sit down. We then waited for 20 minutes before finally being shown to our table, with no apology or explanation for the wait. We had booked via timeout and therefore had a welcome drink and complimentary snack provided, if this had been noted down on the booking the message wasn't passed on because I had to ask for the drinks not once but three times - I should also mention at this point we had been asked twice by a separate member of staff what we would like to drink...The snack then came out and again no drink, this was after another 20 minutes waiting! It took me reminding them a third time once we already had food to rushedly bring it over. I then ordered myself the tasting wines and before the other guest had time to order, the waiter had gone! We then ordered her a drink when the waiter returned, only for him to bring out the wrong drink, by the time my friend received her drink, we were on our third course...First impressions were not great and the wait for the food would not have been so bad had we at least had our drinks. The food was okay, it definitely got better as the courses went on with a few particular stand outs, I did find that some dishes were quite bland though which was disappointing. We were asked three times by our waiter which course we had just eaten (despite the same waiter clearing our table moments before) which the first time is fine, but three times gives the impression they are not paying attention at all and you feel taken out of the luxury experience they are trying to offer. We were there for 3 and a half hours and had to rush the last few courses as we had somewhere else to be, the whole thing was meant to be 2 hours! When the bill finally did come, we had been charged for the complimentary snacks. These were taken off upon request but we were really unimpressed with the whole thing. Unfortunately I would not recommend this experience at all, the food was okay and there were some nice dishes but the poor service really ruined it and we didn't have the chance to just sit there and enjoy the food and the experience. For the price of the final bill I'd recommend going somewhere else that not only offers a more luxury experience, but provides it. A great concept with a lot of promise but unfortunately the execution was poor, there were plenty of staff around as well so really no reason for the service to have been as...

Our first (and probably last) experience at Six by Nico was unfortunately a let down.

We had quite high expectations considering the good reviews I've seen so far.

I mentioned in my booking one of the 2 guests is vegetarian. Our booking was for 12.15 on a Saturday.

On arrival we were greeted by lovely staff and shown to our table. The first 4 courses and clues came seamlessly and were very well timed.

The restaurant got really busy and we had to wait 25 minutes between course 4 and 5. When the 5th course arrived I was brought the meat option - I had to ask if it's vegetarian because it looked exactly the same as my partner's. They had no clue one person at our table was veggie - we got served by 4 different staff members during our visit. They took the dishes back to the kitchen and came back with the correct ones another 10 minutes later (similar thing happened to the table next to us).

We got our dessert and were kindly offered 2 glasses of prosecco to apologise for the delay - which was nice but I would have rather received our meals on time as we were already late for our plans after the meal.

We overstayed our visit to the point where another (5th) staff member asked if they could borrow one of our clue cards because they have run out of them.

The experience is also advertised as a "tasting menu" online, however 4 out of my 5 savoury (veggie) dishes had either the artichoke, mushroom or cauliflower as the main flavour (or a combination of the 3). From a tasting menu of £50pp I would have expected more variety of flavours and textures from each course. We felt like other tasting menus we've done in other places were much better value and delivered better in terms of taste and texture. The dessert was a bit bitter and had small crunchy bits in the sponge that kind of tasted like cigarette ashes.

We also noticed some of the staff members interactions between themselves and they looked very hostile. We even overheard some of them say "I don't have any idea what I'm doing" and "what the hell is going on". Didn't feel like they were working as a team and I'm not sure what caused the delay between our courses - I've never run a kitchen but I'd feel like a place that serves the same menu of 6 dishes 6 weeks in a row should work much smoother than it did today. Felt like there just wasn't enough staff to accommodate for all the guests - which again is also odd considering Six by Nico operates on a booking basis so they are likely to know in advance how busy they will get on a certain day?

Overall I had high expectations but it just didn't quite deliver...