Le Pain Quotidien

I have eaten the baguettes from this chain before for lunch, and were quite pleased with them, so was looking forward to the dinner experience.

Food

I wanted to have one of their freshly squeezed juice, but was informed that it was all sold out. So I settled for the Luscombe Apple and Ginger Juice, which was very nice. I also wanted to get the mushroom and chickpea soup, but that had also run out, so made do with sharing the Organic mezze: hummus, babaganoush, aubergine & tomato (£9.00) which was very bland, with ok bread, and some very tasteless, and not very generous dips. Not a good start, and things didn’t pick up either.

There was not that much on the menu in terms of sustenance, most of the stuff revolves around bread with filling. We ordered the Tartine of Shrimp with avocado, tomato salsa & mango slices (£8.20) because there was nothing else. This came on some very thin slices of bread. The topping was not very generous, with the salsa lacking in flavour. A very generous squeeze of lemon juice managed to perk things up a little, but otherwise the whole thing was not worth talking about. The Grilled steak Tartine with caramelized onions and potato wedges (£12.80) sounded good on the menu, and the steak itself was not too bad, however, the caramelized onions were placed directly on the bread, and meant that the juice soaked through so that the whole thing was absolutely soggy. There was a pile of unsatisfying rocket on top, but at least they couldn’t muck that up, unlike the very terrible 4 pieces of wedges I got, with uncooked potatoes and definitely no crunch.

Dom had been raving on about the tarts here, so I was very much looking forward to dessert. Alas, I should have known better, the pastry for both the Espresso chocolate tart and Mixed berry tart were dry, thick, and biscuit like, and the filling was only slightly better. So, as you can see, very disappointing indeed.

Rating - 3

Atmosphere

This is situated over 2 floors. We were seated in the downstairs vaulted area, on a huge long table in the middle, which was great. I was surprised that there were so many people there when we arrived. The place was very noisy, very busy with the tables placed quite close to each other. It certainly quieten down as the night wore on though, I suspect by people moving onto other things.

Rating - 1.5

Service

So slow…. Even for a big table of 20, it was unacceptable. No one came to take our drink orders, and because heaps of people arrived late, we were left thirsty for about 1 hr. No one paid us any attention and we had to practically trip the waiters over for anything.

Rating - 0

C-factor

A total rip off if you ask me, after drinks and service charge, it was £24 p.p I can definitely have a better and much more substantial meal elsewhere.

Rating - 0

Brownie Points - 4.5

Info

Upper Festival Walk
Belvedere Road
Royal Festival Hall
South Bank
London
SE1 8XX
Phone +44 (0) 20 7486 6154
Website