Sofra Restaurant — Restaurant in London

An update from 4 years ago. Im leaving my old review below, because you never know...

Went recently, and it's like it has gone from night to day. Food much better, although still needs work. Just do not ever order fish. Ever.

The toilets are now upstairs, via the narrowest, most dangerous stairs I've seen in public ever. I'm surprised the local council allow them to be honest, but they are clean at least. Credit where credit is due.

Waiting staff attentive and friendly.

I have a feeling that the ownership has changed but I'm not in a position to confirm that.

Food was lovely so no complaints at our table with 4 people.

I've left the old review below:

I very specifically ordered my chicken breast extra well cooked. It was cold inside and i could scrape off the brown colouring to reveal the whitey-pinkness of the raw part. I 'suspect' it was frozen. In any case it was absolutely tasteless other than a weird, dirty grill flavour.

I am sad to say that i have been coming here for many years. It used to serve up lovely food. My last visit here was a disgusting salmon steak, 100% was frozen. I thought oh well, never buy fish in a non-fish restaurant. Was i mistaken... same problem even with the chicken.

I had to eventually ignore the 'Wait here to be seated' sign as every waiter who went past ignored me. When i walked in and stood beside the till i was still ignored and heavily pushed past by the waiting staff.

I chose to ignore that and made sure i assertively made them aware of my presence. Wish i had walked away now. And gone in search of the sugar they didnt want to offer me for my cafe latte until it had dropped to room temperature.

It has gone from a delightful Turkish restaurant to a typical Oxford Street tourist rip off.

Best...

I went to this restaurant yesterday evening to eat with friends. On the face of it, the place seems decent- pretty location etc but the whole eating experience was disgusting to say the least. The waiters are clueless about the ingredients being used in the dishes so could not even explain the menu properly.We were seated under a plastic cover which extended from an awning and it kept dropping on us. We asked the waiter to change our table and after several failed attempts to fix the issue we were seated at another table. We ordered mains of sea bass and black cod and the food was old, bland and cold. The chips served tasted a day old - absolutely horrible. We returned the food to the waiter and explained the problem and he became angry. He then called the manager (a short, bald man with zero manners). The manager came to ask us what the problem was and when we relayed our concerns he made the following statements:

'I know girls like you, you just came here to create problems'

'You are all liars'

'You ate half the sea bass' which we had not.

When we asked to speak to the chef, he said 'I am the chef!'

The manager was disrespectful, hostile and took our concerns over the food personally. He needs training to understand how to treat customers - he most definitely does not know how to speak to women.

I normally never leave bad reviews because I understand how damaging they can be for a business but the experience left us extremely disturbed and shocked. I urge people to not go to eat here. You will be served stale food and disrespected and then handed a heavy bill to pay at the end. Absolutely horrible...

Terrible service. Do not go here if you have any intolerances/allergies or need to be out in under 2 hours. They delivered complimentary bread and hummus which we happily tucked into. Then when we ordered, we informed the waiter that two guests had dairy allergies. He then LAUGHED and said there’s dairy in the bread you’re eating. We complained that nothing was said when it was given, and the waiter just laughed and continued to take our order. I then asked if there was any dairy in the dish I had ordered and I was reassured it was fine and contained no dairy. We then waited a long time for our food to come, in which time I noticed on the menu it said if you want a vegan dish you needed to swap the rice for chips. I realised rice was in the dish i ordered and therefore would actually contain dairy. I asked the manager and he said there’s is “a little bit of butter in the rice, only a little bit you will be fine.” I said i have an allergy and will not be fine so it needs to be swapped for chips, which was agreed. The broccoli was cold and had to wait 25 minutes to pay. We refused to pay the service charge that was automatically added to the bill, which required the manager to take our payment. When we explained our reasons for not paying the tip, the manager continued to argue with us saying “how are we supposed to know what allergies people have” - when we had literally asked and been lied to by the waiter regarding allergens. After a long and uncomfortable conversation the service charge was removed. Terrible service do not recommend, I literally had to run to boots to get medication as we had...