Check you bill.

Went with a friend after hearing this was a good restaurant. The food was tasty, although pretty salty and quite a bit overpriced. The place feels nice and quite fancy, but the service isn't nice or fancy. Both courses were taken away while I was still chewing.

When the bill came we were overcharged by £16. This was hard to establish as there is no proper breakdown in Bar Shu, just a set of numbers scribbled down on pieces of paper and stapled together. For a restaurant whose staff wear microphone headsets this low-fi approach to billing seems a bit out of place.

After questioning the charge, another piece of paper was brought for £10 less, but we received no explanation. The waiter simply brought it and walked off. After a very difficult conversation trying to establish why there was still £6 too much, we managed to extract from him that it surprisingly included a service charge! Getting the figure without the service charge meant another long wait, after which the waiter became impatient and rude: the card reader was snatched out of my hand after I'd entered the pin, and he wandered off with the reader and my card in it, while we waited. My card and final receipt were handed over to another waiter to bring to me.

Nobody explained why we were overcharged and nobody apologised.

I have just got home from a VERY VERY disappointing visit to Bar Shu.

I had made a number of previous visits and thought it was a good restaurant so this time decided it was the venue of a special outing.

I have never been so rushed - if we hadn’t lingered we would have been in and out in 45 mins - I wouldn’t mind if I was grabbing a bite and paying Wong Kei prices, but this was meant to be a special occasion.

All our dishes arrived at the same time 5 mins after ordering - and the bill arrived without asking – I feel as though we were pushed out the door.

I know the Chinese restaurants are not renowned for their friendly service - but there should be some understanding that if you are charging high prices and marketing yourself as a top resto, then you do have some responsibility to offer a decent level of service and make the customer feel special and not a mug – as I know feel.

I hope Bar Shu pulls up its socks and treats customers with respect - because the food was nice - until then I strongly suggest patrons take their business to the other Sichuan restaurants in London instead.

Maybe in 2006 this palce was good but in 2008 it's not in my opinion.My girlfriend is Chinese so we go to more than our fair share of restaurants. We normally eat at Mayflower but fancied a change. What a let down. The service wasn't good and they became even worse when we sent food back - twice!!The menu says that the food might not look like what actually is delivered. Well, no shit! The spare ribs were cold and had no meat on them (unlike the meaty version shown in the picture). They were the worst we've ever had. We sent them back to ask for warm ones and the waiter was really upset that we had the audacity to send food back. They microwaved them!!! The dry-braised fish was awful and I think we ate less than 1/4 of it - at £22/fish it should be good. The veggies that came with garlic were inedible. My girlfriend had a few fork-fulls and just couldn't eat them. It was ridiculous there was so much garlic it wasn't right. We just left the veggies. We didn't see another waiter until the end of our 'meal' and that was after waved and waved for him to come over. When he came we asked for the bill and to take the veggies off as they were awful. He told us we should have told him earlier. Well, had he came over to see us earlier then we would have done. The manager gave us the bill, added on 13% as a service charge and said that he was doing us a favour by not charging us for the 1/2 veggies that we ate. I asked for the service charge to be removed and I would decide for myself how much I would tip and he brought the menu over to me, opened it up, and siad, "It's NOT discretionary, you must pay".Ugh. This place really sucks. Never going back. Ever.

I found Bar Shu to be delightful. The spicey food is not too hot, but just enough to get your sweating a little! Really good service - lovely head waiter, who was most concerned about getting us to sit where we wanted. He was very funny and attentive. Bar Shu is well worth a visit.