STRAKER'S — Restaurant in London

I went here in December, and while I did not have a good experience I was not planning on writing a review as the restaurant was still new at that point and I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as in general I don't like giving out negative reviews to small businesses, even when I have had a negative experience. However, I found their recent Instagram story suggesting negative reviews were simply trolls to be in bad faith as most of the things that others have raised in their negative reviews are reflective of my experience

The food is good, but seriously overpriced. In particular the pasta, which was a relatively small portion and cost £34. I think the fact they have no pricing at all on their website menu is pretty telling

The atmosphere was not great, the restaurant was too crowded so that you could easily hear the conversations of diners next to you and there was very little room for the staff to move around. The restaurant also got uncomfortably smoky at various points

But the worst part of all was by far the service. It took a long time to get someone to greet us and take us to our table when we came in, a long time to order our food, a long time for the food to arrive, a long time to get the bill, and a full on 10 minutes to get the card machine. The waiting staff (other than one person who was an absolute machine and was doing a great job keeping things together for the whole restaurant) seemed to be running around manically without actually doing very much. While I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt given they had only recently opened (although from other reviews it seems this problem has persisted) what I could not accept was the staff constantly going behind the bar to take shots all night. Maybe if the staff weren't too busy getting drunk they could provide slightly faster service, and maybe if they were not drinking up all the booze prices might be a bit lower...

The worst element of the service though was before we even got to the restaurant. We booked almost two months in advance (booked 1st of October for a reservation late in November) for a birthday dinner on a Sunday, and we were only informed 8 hours before the booking that they do not open on Sunday evenings. This was not their first Sunday since opening the restaurant but somehow only figured out they needed to notify me on the day. What is worse, they only offered a token apology, and the opportunity to re-book on a different day, an opportunity I regret taking up given the experience we...

Title: Strakers, to be or not to BUTTER!

Well it’s tricky isn’t it. If you spend countless hours on IG watching Mr Straker go uuuuuuuummmmmmm you’re expecting nothing less. And, to be honest I thought it really was uuuuuuuummmmmm

If you really look into what Straker does on IG it’s no different to his restaurant. Okay, yes there are more videos (recipes) on IG. But I mean helllooooo he’s not going to make 1 loaf of bread 10 times on IG and you can’t ask the restaurant to update their menu that quickly.

Anyway, the restaurant Strakers.. yum! If you’re a fussy eater then it’s time to grow up and try something new. Muscle butter flatbread, weird but goooood. What a weird and exciting combination, quite like most of the dishes on the menu. Okay yes the dishes don’t look perfect, but I don’t think the dishes on Strakers IG are supposed to look perfect. Nevertheless, maybe the crab pasta could look a little less intense. But hey, the setting, recipes and general ambience all slotted together very well.

There was a fun, quick, fast and sexy vibe that was consistent. A Marvin Gaye remix, delicious red wine (cheapest glass), super happy smiley waiters who were very attentive (Lissy and Barney were fantastic!!) combined with a yummy and unique menu what’s not to like….

WELL! £16 for one scallop… hmmm that’s a tough scallop to share. But then again £12 for a tasty flat bread with fresh fish is super, so it’s a tricky one. Perhaps we had an easy night. I’m not sure, the 1 star reviews seem quite harsh, 1 star has to be particularly bad and even with food poisoning I would of still given 2 stars for the service.

All in all, it’s just tricky when you wait so long and fight so hard to get a table, watch hours of ALL THINGS BUTTER videos and there’s no bloody butter! (sort of is)

I mean Straker, have a butter menu like a wine menu. £4.99 for some sourdough and a dollop of your rolled butter. 10 butters, or even just 3 new butters a week. It would be awesome and all the IG followers would be happy.

Anyway, Strakers was delicious, casual and fun. Yes it’s not super cheap but it’s fresh and well thought through. Even the water is sustainable and filtered (it’s free fyi!).

Close to 5, however there were just a few hiccups. And don’t judge Strakers to Instagram…...

After seeing an Instagram story appeag for reviews, I thought I would share my honest thoughts about me and my girlfriends experience at Strakers on December 3rd 2022 (i posted a private review on Resy at the time).

Firstly, we arrived around 5 minutes early for our reservation, for what was the first of the evening dinner service. When I asked if we could wait and perhaps have a drink somewhere, we were rudely told to wait outside by a manager, and it really seemed as if our request was ridiculous by him?

After waiting outside for a while, we were eventually shown to our table. Even though we were the first in for the dinner service the small venue already seemed cramped, with masses of waiters making their way up and down the restaurant. As the restaurant started fill up, this became more and more apparent as there was little space for waiters to access tables between guests and tight service passageways.

The first thing we had ordered on arrival was a bottle of red wine, this took over 45 minutes to arrive at our table, after multiple requests for it to be brought over. By the time it arrived, we were well on to our main course. It was a lovely bottle of red wine but was marred by the fact that it was so late.

The nightmare with the wine, was accompanied with incorrect dishes coming from the kitchen to our table. Some of which even when we pointed out that they were incorrect, we were told it was our dish. We put this down to the restaurant being fairly new, and a lack of knowledge of the menu, but it was disconcerting that it happening on various occasions. The food was however very good, except from the flatbread which were typical instagram dishes, that look the part but were very underwhelming. Other than that we enjoyed the two courses that we had.

To conclude the evening, the bill was incorrect and was still incorrect on the third attempt.

Again I put it down at the time to the restaurant being in its early stages. But from reading other similar reviews it could well of been for poorly managed inexperienced staff.

All in all, we were left disappointed with the overall experience compared to the hefty price that was paid for the meal around £60-£70 pp.

Honestly if I was in the area again, I wouldn’t be...