John Torode's Cafeteria

[olly s]

I gather that John Torode's new place in Ladbroke Grove opened last week. Anybody been??

[olly s]

I finally made it there last night and QUITE enjoyed it.

I arrived and the restaurant was empty - obviously not their fault, and not what they would choose necessarily, but the fact. It is a vast room with very high ceilings (ex-bierodrome) and while I waited for my friend to arrive, I felt a little lost. There were also hundreds of staff running around, obviously waiting for the enslaught bound to come later, but bored and fidgety in the meantime. None of this is avoidable - it was early and the restaurant has only been open a week.

The food was good on the whole. I had a delicious Omelette Arnold Bennet and a bowl of chips with some really good mayonnaise. Cholestrol induced stuff but well seasoned and nicely presented. At £9.50 (+ £2.50 for the chips) it was no where near a bargain, but it just about justified its price tag. My smugness could have been one reason for Alice not particularly enjoying her Ribeye steak sandwich. The meat looked good, and there was enough of it, but the bread was disappointing. Door-wedge-esque, I think a softer bread would have been better, if only for presentation.

The service was really good, but then it should have been with an average of three staff per table. I suppose that by the time we left, there were more like five tables.

It is the kind of place that will do well. It is small enough to fill quite easily when more people know it is there, and I am sure that once it is full of noisy 20/30 somethings, the atmosphere will start to develop. It is not cheap, in the way that you might expect a cafeteria to be cheap, but it is the kind of place that locals should be able to use regularly. I have never eaten at Torode's SOS, but my guess would be that Ladbroke Grove might have drawn the short straw.

[Simon Majumdar]

I used to like SOS but the recent ( or not so recent as I have not been for a year ) price hikes in the top floor bit have taken it from overpriced to " you are fucking kidding aren't you?" Not many places are worth £30 for steak and chips even if you do know that the steak came from a cow with a proveneance that would make it third in line to the throne

The rest of SOS is to be avoided. The crowd on the bottom floor is full of pasty faced oiks up from the city having a cheap lager before they have to bugger off back to the burbs and the middle bit has a huge hole in the floor just so you can hear the aforementioned crowd, good thinking.

Still it is packed to the gunwhales every time I walk past it, so Torode is obviously raking it in

S

[olly s]

this place is pitched quite differently. it is much more cafe cross steakhouse plus a few quid. I can see what you mean about downstairs at SOS - always rammed hence why I have never bothered staying - perhaps on second thoughts Ladbroke Grove is the not so unfortunate after all ...

[circeplum]

Not many places are worth £30 for steak and chips even if you do know that the steak came from a cow with a proveneance that would make it third in line to the throne

still, if you can score a table outside on a balmy evening, the aforementioned cow and the view can almost make it seem worth the loot.

m

[Simon Majumdar]

Ah yes, it rarely gets more romantic than dining alfresco just off the Farringdon rd

what is it like living in your world M?

S

[Clerkenwellian]

The rest of SOS is to be avoided.  The crowd on the bottom floor is full of pasty faced oiks up from the city having a cheap lager  before they have to bugger off back to the burbs and the middle bit has a huge hole in the floor just so you can hear the aforementioned crowd, good thinking.

Still it is packed to the gunwhales every time I walk past it, so Torode is obviously raking it in

S

agree middle bit is unbearably noisy on Thursday and Friday evenings, but it's quiet enough Monday to Wednesday and rather good value

[Simon Majumdar]

Perhaps it is worth a try.

But, I have to say I find The Sutton Arms the best value for money in that part of town, so I usually end up there

S

[Kikujiro]

I had breakfast there (Cafeteria) a couple of weeks ago. Excited to see huevos rancheros on the menu, disappointed to receive a kind of spicy version of a canteen ratatouille with eggs that were raw underneath but somehow cooked to develop a rubber-firm skin on top that was astonishingly difficult to penetrate. Oh, and I ordered a grapefruit juice, which on the menu was listed as fresh squeezed pink, and got something out of a carton, for which, it later turned out, I was charged the fresh pink price. Overpriced, too. Staff were friendly.

Website here.

Unlike Simon, I am happy with ground-floor Smiths for breakfast or a sandwich.

Edited June 11, 2003 by Kikujiro (log)

[olly s]

i forgot to mention the delicious little bar upstairs at cafeteria.

[Simon Majumdar]

Website here.

Whoever wrote their copy wants shooting

S

[circeplum]

Ah yes, it rarely gets more romantic than dining alfresco just off the Farringdon rd

what is it like living in your world M?

S

lovely, thank you. twinkly and fizzy and exciting.

m

[Clerkenwellian]

The rest of SOS is to be avoided.  The crowd on the bottom floor is full of pasty faced oiks up from the city having a cheap lager  before they have to bugger off back to the burbs and the middle bit has a huge hole in the floor just so you can hear the aforementioned crowd, good thinking.

Still it is packed to the gunwhales every time I walk past it, so Torode is obviously raking it in

S

agree middle bit is unbearably noisy on Thursday and Friday evenings, but it's quiet enough Monday to Wednesday and rather good value

I was talking bollucks.

Went there last night and the noise levels were perfectly fine. The food, on the other hand, was crap.