Ristorante Sirena

Ristorante Sirena is situated along a row of restaurants on James St, and on this Friday night, every restaurant looked like it was full, with guests spilling out onto the pavement. On closer look, it seemed like all the restaurants just filled their best tables (i.e. outside) first, so there was plenty of room. We were lead to the almost empty basement, which slowly filled up during the night.

Food

We started with some Turkish bread with olives and balsamic oil. The bread was super oily, so the oil wasn't really need. The olives were additive (even though they were small and had not much meat).

Since they proclaimed the Branzino al Cartoccio (£16.95) - Whole sea bass stuffed with herbs, baked in foil with white wine and lemon as a house specialty, we had to try it. It was served dramatically at the table, peeling back the foil to review a whole fish swimming in poaching liquid. It was pretty glorious, the flesh moist from the cooking method.

The rest of the menu is pretty stock standard. You have your usual pizzas and pastas, so I chose the Talionini Procini (£10.50)- angel hair pasta with mushrooms wrapped in prosciutto as it sounded a little unusual. Again, the presentation was superb. The pasta was in a circular disk, wrapped by some prosciutto. The taste though, was ok. The pasta wasn't quite al-dente, and the sauce was a little dry, and I couldn't really taste the mushrooms in it.

Rating - 5.5

Atmosphere

We sat downstairs in the reject area. We miss out on the people watching and being seen, but on the plus side, it was much quieter here so you could talk. It really felt like you were sitting in the storeroom, as they didn't really bother making downstairs feel very homely.

Rating - 1.5

Service

Well, I guess everyone wants to come to London. Our waiter seemed to be Italian, or spoke with some kind of European accent anyway. It seemed like he had the run of the downstairs area. Our meal took ages to arrive, and we had to get him to chase it up several times. He was pretty apologetic, but didn't really do anything about our really long waiting time. He did debone our fish pretty skillfully though.

Rating - 2.5

C-factor

This was one of the most expensive meals we've had, and in a very modest setting too. I guess you have to pay to hang in the cool spots.

Rating - 0.5

Brownie Points - 10

Info

44 James St
London
W1U 1EY
Phone 020 7486 5620
Website