The English Grill — Restaurant in London

The ratings are not a mistake: the food is good; the service, if fussy, is certainly attentive; and the atmosphere is luscious yet cozy, with moments of theatre. The issue here is simply value for money.

I came here in August 2023 to dine with family members who were staying at the hotel.

The bread was good (those made in-house excellent) and the anchovy butter superb. The scallop starter was tasty but a little under - a harder sear would have gone a long way, but a couple more degrees on the centre would have been nice too. The caviar on it served only to justify the price. For mains we had lamb navarin, wild garlic & parmesan gnocchi, and a fish of the day, which was seabass.

Navarin is a French springtime stew. This was an attempt to make a refined take on that. The lamb was very tender but could have been juicier (perhaps it was too high value a cut, lacking a little collagen). The sauce was exquisite, heady with rosemary, a real sign that these guys know what they're doing, but the dish was sauced to sparsely - an extra 45ml - one shot's worth - would have really improved the eating experience of this dish. Vegetables were treated well.

The gnocchi was a really uninspiring dish. Flavours of tomato, garlic, walnut were pleasant but forgettable, the sort of thing you'd get in any decent Italian restaurant, the gnocchi were a bit dense, and the sauce was tight and lacking brightness.

Sea bass was really nicely cooked, sweet flesh and crispy skin, the standout dish, sadly not my own.

We had creamed spinach, and parmesan truffle hash browns on the side, both of which were pleasant but safe. The hash browns were recommended by the waiter, and I was expecting bold flavours and shattering texture, but got neither.

We shared a rhubarb and chocolate dessert. Tasty, but nothing more.

Here's the issue: between 3 of us we ordered 1 starter, 3 mains, 2 sides and a dessert (there were children too, I've ignored their food, and there was wine too, also put to one side). We were also given some bread and flavoured butter, and a pork belly amuse-bouche (not all the guests eat pork, but the restaurant only asked about allergies and, not expecting such extras, nobody mentioned this fact - blame shared). If the decor had been unassuming and the total had been £125, I'd be giving this place an unambiguously positive review, and calling it an excellent bistro. The problem is that those dishes cost about £190, literally 50% more. And frankly, we didn't even order anything off the grill, which averages around £65 per dish.The setting is expensive and desirable, and the prices follow suit. Sadly the culinary touch is not at the same level. At those prices, I'd expect the food to be at least more precisely executed and preferably also more interesting (although I appreciate they appear to be aiming for very traditional).

I enjoyed my evening at The English Grill thoroughly, but at that price I can think of a dozen places I'd...

Bottom line - The food and the service were great. The head waiter, Sommelier and support staff were so friendly it felt like we knew each other already. I have an intolerance to dairy, no problem. My wife is vegetarian, no problem.

TLDR; We are from the US and taking a 2 week-ish vacation through Germany, Austria, Italy, France and England. We had to change our 4 day visit to Rome due to the heat and we headed over to London earlier in our trip as planned. We were completely ‘knackered’ from all the travel / heat, we were very hungry and we just wanted to get some ‘comfort food’ so we agreed on Indian.

We used apple/google maps app to find some places nearby our Airbnb and we saw the ‘Curry Room’ and decided to take a chance that we could get a table. We arrive at ‘The Rubens’ and realize that the restaurant is in the hotel so we start to walk in and the doorman asks where we are going, we say the ‘Curry Room’ and he says with a concerned look ‘do you have reservations’, answer ‘no but let’s give it a try’ and he points us in the direction. of what we thought was the Curry Room. The head waiter greets us and sits us down, we get the menu and I sense something was wrong. (I’m sorry but we were so tired at the time that I couldn’t even remember my own name let alone remembering theirs now).

I realize that there are NO curry dishes on the menu and I’m feeling very sad at this point. Head waiter says, very politely, that there is no way on earth that we can get a table so… we find ourselves sitting at the English Grill :). We were too hungry to run out the door so we decided to stay and make the best of it.

We weren’t dressed spectacularly but just barely good enough to not get turned away at the door so we dug into the menu and I decided to have a steak, my wife had a ravioli dish and we both had a much deserved glass of wine (a full bottle was ordered later on because we were having such a good time).

A lovely 98 year old woman from Wales sat (alone) next to us and we chatted with her for about an hour. Turns out that she is a ‘regular’ who has been coming to the hotel and restaurant for ~30 years! (and… wait for it, she was on a ‘business trip’!). When she retired to her room for the evening another couple came over to double click on our discussion with her - they were in the movie industry and taking a client to Wimbledon the next day.

So we just wanted a curry and wound up at a restaurant that we probably would never have explicitly chosen and we had an amazing evening and we are so glad...

The food was terrific! We enjoyed everything very much. From soup to nuts! But, this is the first time I have been thoroughly impressed by a restaurant’s staff. Every one of them! Tsveti, who was one of our servers and a manager, two other young women, who’s names I don’t recall. The first woman I asked about a Wagyu filet. Ive had Kobe beef before and wasn’t overly thrilled with it. So, I was a little tenitive about the Wagyu. Which was an £80 steak. She told me exactly what it would be and that it was very similar to Kobe and if I didn’t like the Kobe, I probably wouldn’t like this either. Rather then just trying to sell me an expensive steak. I was very impressed by that. The other young lady was very helpful in helping my wife choose the wine. Two very fine young men, one of which who was Mario ( I think ). Were very friendly, courteous and attentive. My wife and I have been to many restaurants and had some very fine servers. But, never have I been so impressed with an entire staff, that I wrote a review about them. I don’t want to under sell the food, it was top notch. I wound up having a NY strip steak. Which can be hit or miss. My steak was perfect, not to marbled, cooked to perfection, with an absolutely perfect peppercorn sauce. My wife had a chicken pot pie ( a favorite of hers ), which she raved about. This place was a great find! And, when dinner was over, Tsveti came back to make sure everything was ok, and we wound up chatting with her for about 20 minutes. She really made our night, as did the entire staff! It was the best time I’ve had at dinner. Kudos to all. Needless to say, if you’re in London, make it a point to eat there. You will not regret it! Thanks again Tsveti and the...