Never before have I ‘officially’ commented on a restaurant I have been to, but I strongly feel the need to do so now…I have been in the hospitality business for 18 years, owning my own hotel/restaurant and separate café-bar in mainland Greece. For as far back as I remember –including my BA in Hospitality- my life has always been about attitude, behavior, cleanliness, manners, quality of service and above all making your customer feel at ease, at home and welcome. I have traveled all over the world and ate in some of the best restaurants there are. I recently visited my mother in London and one night a friend took me and some friends to Yauatcha –she’d been before and had warned me about a couple of things I might find strange and disrespectful- for a meal. To cut a long story short NEVER in my life and in this business have I been so…humiliated and made to feel like a bunch of easy-to-make pound notes! The service was appalling (‘smile’ is something from the past only found in a dictionary) and in the middle of our meal (at 9pm) we were told we had to leave by 9.45pm because the table was reserved for a second seating –which by the way, according to the Official Rules and Regulations of British Restaurants is totally illegal- which left me with my chopstick ‘stuck’ in my mouth! Plus, our waiter earlier on was telling us and the tables next to us, that Madonna was actually there, dinning in the Private Room, when the next day a tabloid magazine had her photo coming out of ‘The Ivy’ –EXCELLENT place- with her husband the same night! On our way out at 10pm I ‘had a word’ with the Manageress (if you can address someone with her attitude as such) and her answer was in exact words: ‘you should be grateful I gave you an extra 15 minutes’!!! I am never, ever going there again and my apologies to the Chef, because the only comforting thing in that place is the food which is sensational. Only those who go there just to be able to tell their friends they’ve been can actually ‘

Yauatcha more than lived up to my friend's recommendation. Every waitress that served us was friendly and relaxed. We were told we only had a 90 minute slot but were later told we could stay as long as we wanted even though upstairs was at least half full and downstairs was packed.



The food was incredibly flavoursome and inventive - we tried chocolate souffle with red pepper sorbet and chocolate chilli sauce. All the dim sum were mouth watering. The cocktails were also unusual but delicious and reasonable at £7.00. Only the glass of wine my friend had seemed a bit steep at nearly £4.00 for a tiny glass. The atmosphere at Yauatcha was buzzy but not pretentious and the decor made you feel you were somewhere special. For the amount we ate we thought £40.00 per head was reasonable. I'd recommend this place to anyone.

Yauatcha is a great stylish place...I've never had a problem getting in and agree that it has a feel of a hideaway and I can only say that I've always had good service here, contrary to popular belief. The much heralded Yauatcha venison puffs are great and I love the clean tastes of the seafood/shellfish dim sum.

I love Yauatcha! Not only is the venue great looking but the food is delicious too. You feel as though you are part of an exclusive club at Yauatcha but that doesn't mean it's pretentious, just really special.