Tuna Tartar
The Vincent Rooms

The Vincent Rooms

Westminster Kingsway College, SW1P 2PD, City of London,Westminster, United Kingdom

Wine • European • Desserts • Vegetarian


"Remember Westminster Kingsway College is a training establishment and so flaws need to be detected and corrected. So consider this in your expectations on booking. However in general the food was excellent so no problems there. We dined at the Escoffier at lunch with the £40 tasting menu. This had a Thai flavour but was not spicy. There is also a separate vegetarian menu. I am not sure whether it is possible to ascertain the menu before booking but the dishes change every week. All the food is beautifully presented up to Michelin Star standards. The courses are appropriate size and you do not feel overfilled at the end. Canapés were served and then 4 or 5 courses. The Bream was the best I had tasted and the duck dish perfectly cooked. The dessert was a work of art and I understand that there are fully separate main and pastry kitchens. Thai fish soup was a little bland but that is being a bit picky. To follow was coffee with an amazing selection sweets and pastries. The nougat was to die for as well as the Turkish delight. There is a good selection of wine and we finished 2 bottles at £33 each. The serving staff and chefs are all students and there is one slightly fearsome supervisor/lecturer. The students started off being a little nervous so make sure any special requests are correctly noted. The lecturer is much in evidence. Any mistakes were largely around serving protocol. It is a fun experience for diners. We were there for 3 hours so don't make any appointments in the afternoon. At the end of the dinner the young chefs will come and speak to you about the meal. The restaurant itself is comfortable and art deco in style. The tables are closed together than at a usual 5 star establishment. The total bill for 4 was £234 and this is probably half the price of a tasting meal with wine elsewhere. There is no service charge but it is possible to make a donation on the way out."

Yo! Sushi Oxford Circus

Yo! Sushi Oxford Circus

Basement Ground Floor (East) Portland House, W1A 1AB, City of London,Westminster, United Kingdom

Sushi • Asian • Lunch • Japanese


"Typical soul less restaurant, focused all on looks, rather than substance. The place itself is fairly nice and stylish, especially around the bar area, but that’s pretty much where the positives end, for me. The menu offers a relatively small selection of dishes, including a bit of everything (which I always think is a bad sign), from mussels and oysters to lamb stew, and seems to have been put together with no rationale behind whatsoever. My partner and I ordered a baked goat cheese which had a thick and slightly soggy breaded coating that made me think it had been frozen, and added nothing to the taste, and was served with bits of nuts and flavourless pear and a ham hock terrine as a starter. After saying they had to double check if the terrine was available, the waiter confirmed after a little while. When they came back with the dishes, a good 20 minutes later, the terrine was not there. We naturally asked for it again and they, slightly puzzled, replied that it should also be about to come and that they would go and double check with the kitchen. Five more minutes passed, then the waiter came back, apologising that a mistake was made and the terrine was not going to come. I stress that nothing was offered to my partner in compensation for his hopeless 25 minutes wait for food, not a starter or a glass of wine on the house, nothing. I honestly never experienced such a bad service in a restaurant. My partner, reasonably speechless by then, decided to skip the starter and just have the burger he ordered, which obviously was also underwhelming and overcooked. I instead had some pumpkin and sage tortelloni, which were honestly quite nice, but had their potential totally frustrated but how they were served with a bit of runny broth, including a very small amount of diced shiitakes, in a very bad attempt at giving the tortelloni an Asian twist. I summary, in our experience the food was mediocre and badly thought of, and the service terrible. We will never go back."