With a good-looking spot in the heart of town and an excellent bar next door, Bloomsbury Street Restaurant certainly looks the part. It’s just a shame the food doesn’t always match the decent first impression.

The Venue
As part of the Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Bloomsbury Street boasts the kind of location that many venues would kill for – just around the corner from the British Museum and footfall pretty much guaranteed from hotel guests and ambling tourists. Still, aesthetically at least, it doesn’t rest on these laurels, with an attractive dining room looking altogether pretty sleek; its dark décor brightened up nicely by pristine napery and a smattering of kooky art featuring little boys and bananas, of all things. Pleasingly, both the restaurant and bar are accessed by a separate entrance to the hotel – which is certainly a good start for anywhere attempting to avoid feeling like a mere appendage to the main event of laying one's head.

The Atmosphere
Looking and feeling more or less like a stand alone restaurant, Bloomsbury Street avoids that especially depressing atmosphere that many hotel restaurants suffer from, engendered predominantly by lone diners at pains to keep expenses reasonable as they think wistfully of home. Instead, there’s some pretty funky music going on, suiting the modern décor and making for a pretty inviting and contemporary dining room. Staff are very pleasant and friendly, if a touch eager at times. Still, they seem to know the menu well so perhaps they’re just keen to make sure you choose correctly.

The Food
The mostly modern-European menu isn’t exactly inexpensive (even if it does nip to Asia on occasion) so you might expect a little more consistency from a kitchen that can flitter between pretty impressive and not very good at all, via the perfectly fine.

Starters such as the tempura squid (£7.50) are decent, with well-cooked squid in a batter that’s probably a little more than mere tempura but nice nonetheless. The accompanying wasabi mayonnaise plays it safe though, with not enough heat or flavour from the Japanese root. The duck platter (£14) isn’t really very good at all, with some overdone slices of smoked breast, a few bits of dry, tasteless confit and a slice of okay foie gras that’s accompanied by some nicely toasted brioche and some perfectly adequate sweet onion chutney.

Thankfully mains are much better, with a very passable rib-eye (£19.50) ever so slightly overdone (more medium-rare than rare) but featuring some excellent charring that works well with the sweetness of what’s clearly a good cut. The chips on the side are excellent, but the pink peppercorn sauce too sweet. The rack of lamb (£24) is roasted to a very pretty pink, with some incredibly tender meat again proving there’s good sourcing at play. The herb crust might be a tad powerful for some but a surprisingly spicy cake of aubergine, chickpeas and tomato is actually pretty good, and complements the lamb.

Desserts are the kinds of thing you’d expect (crème brûlée, bread and butter pudding, Eton mess) but the cheeseboard (£8.90) is perhaps the best way to go, with a generous plate of goat’s, brie, stilton and cheddar an impressive selection, even if the stilton is far too cold.

The Drinks
A refreshingly succinct wine list features a raft of affordable options, with many of the lighter whites, for example, under £20. A few are available by the glass (including a good 2007 La Graveliere Sancerre at £7.25), and some by the half bottle, so everything is perfectly accessible. A number are definitely worth trying, with a very good 2006 Trimbach Riesling at £39.75 and a surprisingly drinkable 2007 Californian Pinot Noir from Estancia (£30) both representing pretty good value.

The Last Word
It’s a shame that Bloomsbury Street Kitchen isn’t offering more of the consistency found in its mains. Until it does, it’s probably going to struggle to attract much other than guests of the hotel, or the odd passerby enticed in by what’s actually a pretty attractive venue.

View®  Card offers venue information venue map view london review write a review