With tasty cocktails, large American-style portions and funky house DJs, this stylish Soho venue has everything you need for a night out under one roof.

The Venue
Sat on Wardour Street, in the centre of London, Profile is typically Soho – clean, modern, gay-friendly and a tad pricey.

Aiming to be a bar, cafe and diner, this venue has a stylish design, which helps make it stand out from the local competition. With huge open windows showing off the bright colours inside, Profile Soho is easy to spot among the multiple eateries on Wardour Street. Once inside, you'll immediately be taken back – or blinded – by the electric taxi-yellow leather seating, a splash of colour that's further emphasised by the black tiles covering the venue's walls and white patterned flooring.

Throughout the venue, there's a selection of places to sit – choose from high stools by the bar for informal drinks, or booth seating - which can be reserved - that are ideal if you're having a sit-down meal. At the back, there's a DJ booth and even a small area for dancing and warming up if you're planning to visit the Lo-Profile club downstairs. Sit at the back and you'll be able to see your food being cooked in the open kitchen, too. There are newspapers on offer and wi-fi if you're planning on going for a working lunch.

While the black tiles employed throughout the venue – they’re even in the toilets – and clean polished look may be a touch generic, the taxi-yellow coloured seating definitely gives this place an identity of its own.

The Atmosphere
During the day, the venue is laid-back, with workers and shoppers popping in for a spot of breakfast and lunch. At night, the bouncer appears on the door, the DJ arrives and the funky house music is pumped up - it becomes a lot livelier. Due to its location and the fact it’s open until 11pm, it's a popular stopping point for many people passing through the area before going on to a late-night bar or club. On Friday and Saturday nights, it's full of people having drinks in the bar before going downstairs to the Lo-Profile club, which is open until 4am.

Staff at the venue are friendly and take a lot of pride in their jobs – especially when it comes to expertly preparing the cocktails and serving up the food. Although there’s sadly no special diner-features, such as staff whizzing round on rollerskates, but Profile is still very hectic and definitely not the place to come if you're looking for a quiet meal. This is especially true in the evenings when the funky house music is particularly loud.

The Food
The environment is great at Profile, and in some ways it works a lot better as a bar. Food is very diner-like with shakes, huge desserts and breakfasts all in high demand. It's not particularly cheap to eat here but when you consider the area, it's pretty much the going rate.

The quality of the meals is very hit or miss. While the desserts are great, some of the starters and main courses are a little disappointing and no different to the standards you expect in an average bar – a shame considering this place has all the attributes to be something special.

The buffalo wings (£4.75) are a good option if you want some finger food to share. Served in a traditional basket, you get four large pieces of chicken. Well-cooked and tender enough to tear away from the bone, the dish lacks flavour somewhat, and although the chilli and ginger sauce is visibly drizzled over the top of the meat, you can barely taste it. Another option, if you're looking to share a starter or snack, are the nachos. As with all dishes, you can get these as a double portion for two to share, however, the single portion, priced £4.75, has a pretty large pile of tortilla chips as it is. The tortillas aren't overly salty, a complaint often leveled against nachos, and the dish comes piled with guacamole, sour cream and tomato salsa, which all taste impressively fresh, especially the guacamole, which has avocado pieces in it. The cheddar sprinkled on the chips is strong in flavour and very complementary but there's not a lot of it.

When it comes to main meals, Profile has a range on offer, which includes traditional dishes such as rib-eye steak and fish and chips. The burgers and hot dogs can even be ordered as a low-carb version, with no bun or fries and salad instead. You will also find salads and breakfasts, which are served all day.

If you're a big meat eater, the rib-eye steak is a good option. Although one of the more expensive dishes on the menu (priced £14.95) the quality of meat is worth the money. The steak is deliciously juicy and the staff understand the importance of cooking it to order. The grilled tomato it comes with could be left under the grill a bit longer and the portion could be slightly larger but it's juicy and fresh-tasting all the same. Where this dish is let down is the fries – there's scope in this dinner to serve good-quality fries or hand-cut oven chips but instead the plain oven chips are pretty forgettable and very salty.

Unfortunately, there are only a couple of dishes on offer if you're a veggie, so you might be tempted to pick the homemade veggie burger, which is priced at a very reasonable £7.50. The potato-based veggie burger, although home-made, is particularly tasteless and is quite a heavy portion in itself, so you don't really need the bun. Made with sweetcorn and peas, it falls apart on your fork and is overly dry. The gherkin and beef tomato it's stacked on do help to balance out the dryness but the hummous and salad leaves don't help at all. Both are a bit too oily for comfort and make it feel a bit greasy.

There are several desserts on offer in the diner and they display an American theme – waffles, New York cheesecakes, a chocolate brownie, and cookies and cream. They're all served with Jude's Ice Cream – ice cream made by a family-run Hampshire company – and some of the flavours are delicious.

There are also milkshakes on offer, too. The Profile Sundae is the diner's signature dish. Made with two scoops of ice cream (chocolate and honeycomb, although the flavours can be swapped if required), walnut brownie, hot caramel and whipped cream, it's large and very indulgent. The honeycomb ice cream is delicious and makes the dish. The walnut brownie is a little hard to bite into but overall the dish is fantastic. Alternatively you could order a Profile carrot cake – one of the more scrumptious desserts on the menu, it is moist and really easy to eat.

The Drink
The drinks menu at Profile is outstanding and the cocktails are one of the main things that make the venue stand out. Their signature drinks are entitled Absolute Exclusive (£7) cocktails, which are all made with different flavours of Absolute vodka. These cocktails are delicious – the Absolute Exclusive Mint is a great option and could even be imbibed as a hangover alternative to a Bloody Mary. Made with Absolute Citron, mint, sugar and ice, this cocktail comes out looking a lot like a Slush Puppy. The consistency makes it really easy to drink – so be careful not to order too many. The citron and mint flavours nicely complement each other, so the flavour isn't too sharp or overpowering – even if you don’t like mint, you're likely to enjoy this drink. And the sugar gives it a sweet edge that makes it slide down easily.

Another cocktail that stands out is the Absolute Exclusive Pepperberry. Made with Absolute Pepper, raspberries and triple sec, it not only sounds interesting, it tastes great, too. Pepper is placed around the rim of the glass, where the sugar would usually be, and this works well against the sweet-tasting raspberries in the drink, helping to take the edge of the Absolute Pepper vodka.

The venue also offers a good selection of wines – five whites, five reds and two roses, as well as Champagne and sparkling wine. Expect to spend around £18 for a decent bottle. There's not a great selection of beer on offer but you can get Staropramen, Stella and Becks Vier on draught for around £3.50-£4 a pint, and Becks, Bud, Peroni, San Miguel and Magners in bottles for £3.80-£4.95, which is pretty par for the course for the area.

The Last Word
Trendy, modern and multi-functional, not all of the food at Profile Soho might blow you away but the venue's definitely worth visiting for the cocktails and vibrant atmosphere.

venue information venue map view london review user reviews (1) image gallery (6)