Meza

Going to tapas so soon after visiting Spain might be a mistake.

Food

The cocktails are over priced but very nice indeed. They don't skim on the alcohol there. My Peach Capricoska (£7.5) was well balanced and nicely executed. I guess when the bar is the centrepiece of your restaurant, you learn to make some decent cocktails. Slokky was able to get himself a mocktail too, the Not so Cosmo (£4.5) consisted of oranges & lemons with Cranberry Juice. Not bad, but very expensive for what it is.

We had the pre-theatre menu, which had a wide enough choice that if you have 3 people going, you can try everything on the menu. The portions were generous, but the food was average.

• Hommus with Pita bread - not particularly enticing.
• Crab stuffed piquillo peppers - these were sweet and sour and quite pleasant.
• Fuet Catalan - another type of cured meat, served with gherkins.
• Grilled chicken, Romesco sauce - was really boring, like soy chicken wings.
• Manchego 8 month - very pleasant, and you get quince paste. But I still don't like eating cheese as part of a meal.
• Riojan cured chorizo - not as good as the stuff in Spain, why is that? Don't they just cut the stuff up and serve it? They did pair it with some gerkins though...
• Roast pork belly, fennel seeds - the product was nice, with a nice bit of fat, but the execution only so so...the roast potatoes on the side were more interesting
• Salt cod croquet - this one was done well, the salt cod had been soaked in milk and tasted delicious.
• Spanish tortilla (V) - kinda cold and uninteresting
• Thick cut chips, aioli (V) - these were the best of the night. Crispy and hot, with a killer aioli
• Tomato bread (V) - not very tomato like.
• Tomato, basil & spring onion salad (V) - again, a side thought, not really that interesting.
• Torralba Mahon
• Warm churros, chocolate sauce - after eating these in Valencia, I was looking forward to them. Instead, they were nothing like the ones we had in Spain, kinda more cake like, with an overtly sweet but not very rich chocolate sauce. A miss.
• White chocolate & orange rice pudding - I was a bit put off by the white chocolate, but this was easily the pick of the desserts. Rich and creamy and satisfying, I couldn't finish it though
• Santiago tart, cinnamon ice cream - this is like a rice flour cake, very tense and pretty bland. The cinnamon ice cream was excellent though.

Rating - 5.5

Atmosphere

Meza is very good looking indeed. I certainly felt under dressed (or should that be over-dressed?) going in. Nevertheless, we were made to feel welcomed. It's all mood lighting and funky tunes, with a circular central bar dominating. This is where the cool people hang out.

Rating - 2.5

Service

The waiters are obviously quite used to handling a big group. The problem was that all our dishes didn't all fit on the table, and in the end, we couldn't remember who ordered what, so we just shared everything. They even allowed us to pay separately, but we didn't realise and had already gathered the money ourselves.

Rating - 3

C-factor

The pre-theatre menu was £15 for 5 tapas dishes and dessert, but the drinks prices were outrageous, so I only had 1 cocktail.

Rating - 0.5

Brownie Points - 11.5

Info

100 Wardour Street
London
W1F 0TN
Phone +44 (0) 20 7314 4002
Website