The Port House — Restaurant in London

This place has decent reviews and a fair amount of vegetarian options.

However, I have no idea how the rating for this restaurant reached 3/5 stars. To start off...

They charged £5 for five small pieces of baguette, while an entire loaf costs 90p at the local supermarket. Next were the olives, which again cost £5 for canned olives from the local supermarket. Frankly, I don't believe cutting bread or opening a can of olives is worth a 3300% markup, but what do I know? Next were the cheese and meat boards. The cheese board was dropped off unceremoniously, which is fine, honestly. However, the cheese board that was dropped off supposedly had "five" different cheeses. Yet, three of them were gouda with varying levels of staleness, all tasting the same. They appeared as if they were fished out of the back of my mother's cheese drawer, untouched since late 2021. In this case, you might want to sell us a bit more on these £15 cheeses. They were, however, kind enough to give us a 1/2" cube of blue cheese, which was an oasis of flavor in this desert of stale gouda.

I say oasis because there was no relief from this restaurant.

After some barely middling warm courses of under-seasoned potatoes and shrimp defrosted in garlic powder (shout out to the produce buyer, though, the vegetables were FRESH and very good), we reached the highlight of the meal:

DESSERT.

We ordered the gelato and pastel de natas. Just when I thought I had underestimated this restaurant, the dessert came, swooping in like a caped hero! Honestly and truly, an amazing pastel de nata, especially hot off my trip from Portugal! I was blown away!

I asked if they made them in-house because they were that good!

Turns out, they imported them from Portugal.

The wine was decent, at least! However, at this point, you may as well buy it from Tesco for 1/10 the price, along with the bread, cheese, and olives.

Or better yet, for the price of this restaurant, you might as well fly to Portugal, stay the weekend, eat the same pastel de natas, drink better wine, and have better food, all for nearly the equivalent cost of going to this "tapas" restaurant. Otherwise, your local supermarket is a good substitute if you want a similar culinary experience.

At the end of this truly awe-inspiring culinary performance, we watched a wine glass fall off the adjacent table. Stuff happens; I get it. However, this minefield of glass shards was just left in the walkway. Judging by the urgency of the staff, we were trapped. To escape, we had to sweep it aside with our feet. As far as we know, it's still there to this day.

Frankly, avoid this restaurant. London has so many better places to eat for cheaper. Or, if you're willing to spend this money, vacation in...

Taking salvage from the rain we steamed into Port House; that is, Mummy’s glasses streamed up.

Not wanting to sit on a high stool at the bar that greets entry, Mummy walked to the table area. The casualness of the place left mummy unclear if we were to wait to be seated or grab a table ourselves. So, she asked a waitress.

Once assisted Mummy asked for a table for one human and a teddy bear. Taken promptly to the backmost small table, Mummy commented that it seems to be custom to put solo eaters at the back and asked for a table more central. It seemed like the waitress took offense. Though Mummy hadn’t meant any rudeness; it was just a part frustrated, part dry-humoured comment she’d made. The waitress said that Mummy had asked to be placed at the back. We can only think that she misheard ‘A table for a human and a teddy bear’ as ‘A table at the back’!

Rather than take our order it appeared that she went out back and another waitress came out to take our order. I told Mummy off for upsetting the first waitress, even if unintentionally. Lightly spiced with a slight sweetness the sauce complimented the succulent vegetables of our order, Caldereta de Garbanzos Morunos – Chickpea stew of Mediterranean vegetables with Moroccan spices. Being a tapas bar the portion was small (it would normally be ordered with other tapas). But Mummy is on a budget and we were only looking for a small bite to fill a small hole in our little tum tums before going to the opera. The ambiance is warm and cozy, the music pleasant and at a suitable volume for eating. The drawback is that the nearest lavatory is so easy to miss that we missed it and ended up going on an unnecessary adventure to find one up too many too narrow stairways and through too many doors. It was only on the way back that we spotted it in the dark corridor. The lavatories are no way accessible for wheelchair users. But aside from that, we enjoyed our time and our light meal here.

On leaving Mummy said good bye to the waitress that had served us and the one with whom we’d had the misunderstanding. Both pleasantly returned our goodbye. This is lovely little tapas place if in The Strand and looking to have some yummy nosh in a reasonably...

What an incredible experience we had at The Port House! We visited this restaurant on a Thursday night for an intimate & romantic dinner. The restaurant can only be booked for parties of at least 6 people, so we (2 guests) simply presented with no reservation. Despite the restaurant being fairly busy, staff quickly approached us and offered a seat at the bar whilst waiting for our table to be ready (which took about 15 minutes).

We had white wine (which was crispy and fragrant!) and a big glass of Gin and Tonic with rose petals and strawberry (what a dream! 😍). We were then accommodated to the table - a little, corner side table at the back of the restaurant, which felt incredibly cosy & intimate! I loved the atmosphere, with candlelight and soft music!

We ordered a couple of starter dishes and a bigger main. First, we tasted some fantastic Padron peppers, accompanied by slices of bread with Iberico ham! The bruschetta dish was soooo tasty and flavourful! Absolutely recommended! We then proceeded with ordering the squid, cannelloni and the chorizo sausages. All the dishes were perfectly prepared, nicely presented and super tasty! We felt like we were far away from London - experiencing a superb culinary experience! Finally, we ordered two desserts, which were just perfect to complement our meal: the incredible Pastel de Nata (2 + ice-cream) and the Tarta de Santiago!

What an incredible experience - we left the restaurant with our belly satisfied & a wonderful smile on our faces!

Totally recommended & I cannot wait to be back...