J Sheekey - London

I had really been looking forward to going back to Sheekey and trying the Atlantic bar. Unfortunately the service was appalling and very slow which somewhat spoilt the experience. We asked the waiter to stop to serve us a number of times and he was just too thinly stretched and carried on walking past us, it became comical.

This place projects itself as a higher-end, trendy spot for beautiful people; but, aside from its enviable locale for sidewalk dining, it didn't seem worth the inflated prices. Met by a bored-looking hostess whom I had to correct as to our outdoor booking (she did apologise), we then found the service painfully slow--we weren't offered a drink to start and then after several minutes of waiting to order both drink and food, the food took some time to arrive, and even then it beat the drinks by several minutes. There seemed to be not enough waiters (the one we had was nice enough), while two maitre d' types in sharp suits appeared to be pitching in when you could catch one. The food was OK. All in all, not relaxing, because of the service lag, and not worth paying over the odds for the fairly straightforward menu (unless you're just really into raw oysters and the like).

I was really excited to have a seafood meal in London's theater district, so I decided to ignore the negative reviews on Open Table and focus on the positive ones on Trip Advisor. Unfortunately, my experience at the restaurant was a letdown and quite expensive. Despite having to wait a bit at the bar because our outdoor table wasn't ready, the alley table we were seated at was charming. I didn't mind too much when the bottle of wine arrived before the cocktail we ordered, as it was a minor issue. However, I was incredibly disappointed to have been at the restaurant for 90 minutes with only some oysters and one starter being brought to the table. The staff mostly ignored us on a slow Monday night, even though we were there for dinner. We would have been satisfied with just oysters and wine after a show, but we were hungry and left waiting for our dishes, which took a long time to arrive. In fact, the diners who came in after us for post-theater meals had finished eating before we even received our food. Perhaps it was an off night for the kitchen, but considering the high bill we received, I expected a more timely delivery of our dishes without having to repeatedly ask for them. Additionally, the fries/chips we ordered arrived cold. I wish I could say that we had a fantastic seafood meal in London, but the truth is that we only enjoyed the oysters and wine, while the rest of the meal was disappointing for the price we paid. There are much better places in London where you can spend your money.

The experience was decent, but nothing outstanding.

My Starter was overdone but overall a good experience