I went there with a friend this evening, and I have to say after an initially very pleasant greeting by the courteous, professional and pleasant doorman, my opinion of the service there declined thereafter. Our waitress whose grasp of the English language was somewhat difficient being either that she was from an eastern european country and had a particularly strong accent (I say this for discriptive purposes only lest the PC brigade decide to come out here on the Interweb and send me cyber death-threats) or being that it was 9.15pm, she was tired and bored and thought our patronage of their restaurant not worthy enough to even muster the faintest glimmer of a smile, let alone listen to our order which we had to repeat 3 times, all without any apology or indeed any kind of acknowledgement on her part...

Having ordered a black coffee for myself and a tea for my friend, we are presented with 2 pots of tea! With our waitress having disappeared presumably to serve other customers (-fair enough! ;)), I politely caught the attention of a young-ish male waiter and asked if he could bring me the coffee I had ordered...only to be met with a condescending glare before a very transparent plastic smile and a begrudging nod of his head and off he went to change the surplus pot of tea.

The food itself was ok, we had the skate, nothing to write home about. The atmopshere itself in terms of decor etc, very ambient setting, with classy and original decor in-keeping with the Mermaid theme.

All in all, a tad overpriced given the lacklustre level of service we experienced (£12.50 for the battered skate and chips), and relatively average dish quality, with the restaurant's main redeeming feature being the decor and the setting, but then of course this is Leicester Sq and not really somewhere you might choose to frequent for a 99p chip butty and a Coke where you say 'Hia Mate' to Sam the fishman.

Naomi Givans.

The mermaids tail is absolutely fabulous! the decor was stunning and the food simple yet divine. On both occassions i have eaten there the starters have been splendid (whitebait, thai fish cakes) and the mains even better (haddock, monkfish). All the food is really fresh and its worth keeping your eyes peeled for the catch of the day and seaside specials! 5/5

I was so surprised by this restaurant when I went last night. We didn't expect to find an upmarket but friendly restaurant in Leicester Square that we could afford so this is great.

The best things about Mermaids Tail apart from the food are the amazing paintings of mermaids that are painted onto entire walls and the stained glass mermaids in the ceiling panels when you walk in. We really loved it. Well worth a visit!