Hélène Darroze***

My friend wanted to try this place and I decided to come try with her. I just want to say I’m so incredibly disappointed with the experience…. I feel like such a fool paying so much and it’s just … this…..

Just talking about the food, there is only 2 dishes that I had no problems with which was the pasta and the artichoke. The first course which was crab, the foam had a really weird flavour. The lobster pic actually had a sauce which I didn’t take a photo of and it was tandoori sauce and carrot puree and honestly…. I really didn’t like it. The pic after was ox tongue, texture was great but the sauce (chimichurri) wasn’t nice at all, it was way too sour. The turbot or the sauce had a fishy taste. The Wagyu was actually a bit smelly, it doesn’t have the normal Wagyu aroma. Ok my friend can’t taste this but what really struck me about the dish was the damn vegetables!!!!! The vegetable was so so so incredibly salty I wanted to spit it out. I just didn’t and forced myself to swallow it because of curtesy…. The other main was a veal sweetbread which was not my fav but the sauce was ok….. the second last dessert has that rice thingy and when you bite into it, the liquid that comes out honestly was too sickly sweet and a bit disgusting. The last dessert was a miso chocolate dessert which was like not really balanced? My friend said the 2024 winter menu dessert at row on 5 (miso chocolate cake) was a lot lot better than this.

(That Wagyu was a 120£ supplement and it wasn’t even cooked that well).

Service wasn’t great also. Like the few dishes that we never finish, the servers didn’t ask what was wrong etc. They never asked how was the dishes at all. When we stated that we didn’t like some of the dishes etc they offered NO replacement, no solution and just said ok…. Completely different from Azurmendi. I also took out my computer to submit a quiz bc it was due at 3pm today for a while. I literally looked at it no more than 5 mins. Then the server came and was like if you are going to look at the computer please do it outside. Like…. Other people are literally looking at iPads, I’m not even putting the computer on the table. Said to me, I said ok I und bc of the environment and I know it’s not a good thing for the atmosphere. Proceeded to then lecture my friend again about how she also needs to keep her book when others have books and iPads out? Like what… am I a 10 year old kid to you? Just say it once??

Also our server didn’t give us the lunch menu and only showed it when we asked which just feels a bit shady. The way his body language showed was like he wanted us to pay more for the more expensive menu? We decided against the lunch menu because we wanted to try more which we regret.

Price was 380£ w service charge. (No drinks except sparkling water and 1 kombucha). Honestly might take the cake as worst meal of my life. And I am saying this only with respect to the food. Yea this might be an unpopular opinion considering the many raving reviews.