Caravan

God I have tried to like this place (been 3 times) but the burnt coffee and uber cool staff mean i will not be going back.This cafe for the arty set that don't mind the bull that goes along with this place.

Excellent service, food was really, really average.

Looking for a good breakfast after a night on sleeper from Scotland we followed the reviews to Caravan. Hmmm, admittedly the atmosphere was good, lovely attentive service, ( apart from one guy who swore profusely, calling fellow worker a****ing retard!), but the breakie was v v disappointing. Honey roasted meusli with stewed pears was more like dusty grape nuts with diced canned pears, sourdough toast was cold and soggy. Coffee was good, but not so sure I would give it another try.

Superb place. Quality food and service and decent prices.

Brunch was just bad oh so wrong

Just qued up for over half an hour place was filled to the rafters.
I thought a place this busy must be good I'm in for a treat brunch heere we come!

How wrong I was ordered their famous breakfast with scrambled eggs an a side of bubble'n' squeak friend had the smoked ham poached eggs and hollandaise.

Both memorably bad bacon tasted of nothing scrambled eggs had a skin as if it had been flashed under a salamander, and therefore had no silky like texture.
The soy mushrooms were disgusting and revolting at the same time.
Friend's hollondaise had a texture I cant describe and again got the salamder treatment so it had to be scraped of the plate and smoked ham was not the greatest but ok.

Do not get me started on the famous coffee a flat white had no flavor and was tepid.

Can not believe all the good reviews this place has had!

Now if you want a good brunch and cood coffee I would choose St. Ali anyday.

I had two coffees- flat white and a capucino- both the best coffee outside of monmouth by far!
Had the fries (refried from the day before) and the lamb bun which was recommended by the waiter who was attentive. I wasn't impresses with that choice at all I must say.
However, I had the molting, chocolate, lava like heaven thing with creme fraiche sorbet for dessert and a green tea, brand Qi and I was blown away!
Go there for the green tea and the dessert alone, if you go for any thing! Its worth the visit.
Then I had a coffee. I feel guilty for calling it simply coffee because of it seemed more than that... fantastic, whipped, milk with rich, deep, soothing coffee bean flavour seemed like I was being served a coffee with a warm blanket of love. Thanks Caravan for making my trip well worth it. I only came for the coffee and I was given a very nice treat.

Fabulous dishes, good coffee and great atmosphere. Totally loved the beef cheeks and corn fritters. Pork belly was a bit overpriced that's true but overall it is a great little restaurant to enjoy all year long. Nice to come for brunch too.

The food was excellent as was the coffee. It's true that the waiting staff seem a bit disorganized, perhaps overwhelmed by how many customers there are and offers no baby changing facilities, but it is a great location and surprisingly tasty food.

Unbelievable experience! I'm so shocked to see the comments below - and think they should definitely be deleted after almost a year on!

Fantastic service this morning - it's great to be served by people who are passionate, having fun, and love and know the food! Buzzy atmosphere, comfortable, great crowd, and the food....

WOW! Incredible. And for a brunch menu - very reasonably priced!

Go Caravan! Wishing you all the best! Will be back for breakfast Martini's!

I've been to Caravan three times now and absolutely love the atmosphere, it's a lovely area and the food is genuinely divine and creative, however the postion sizes are an absolute joke. I went for dinner last Saturday with three friends from Paris and honestly thought I had ordered a starter by mistake when the dish arrived. Everone was just as disappointed with the portions, we ended up having a cheese plate and a dessert each after the main meal and still went home to bake a baguette and a giant Camembert! Rather disappointing.

Minuscule portions of cheap cuts at astronomical prices. The gypsy pork bun and lamb sweetbreads were furthermore pretty bland and under-seasoned. For better value and much, much better taste, head further down the road to Morrito.

No way first class as your reviews say!! Thought it was the most pretentious coffee place ever! I wanted a regular coffee, and got told "we dont do regular coffee" and spoke as if I were an idiot. After 20mins my "long and black" coffee arrived after I'd mentioned the delay twice to the manager who originally looked at me funny with my "regular" comment. Food was good though, would have had the fry up if it had a sausage, but had ham and bubble instead, sevice was very slow. I think the place needs to pull itself out of it's own backside though!

Went to Caravan for the first time recently, after reading all the great reviews and was not disappointed. The space is lovely and chilled out and relaxed, but in a very cool way also. Staff were friendly and relaxed in their service style and nothing was too much trouble. Thought the food was also really great. The menu is made up of small plates that you can share or have as a starter and then main plates if you want a main course. We opted for both starters and mains (and pudding!) and thought it was all pretty good. A really interesting selection of choices and well executed. Would definitely recommend and we will be back!

Our second time at Caravan, this time for dinner. Staff were friendly / polite enough. We had a great first experience when it was new, but this time supremely disappointed with the quality of the food.
On the menu it all looked great. I had the veal schnitzel which came out on a plate with a handful of foliage on top and a small side of greasy, congealing vege. My partner had the lamb (scant 4 cubes) which arrived in a small metal curry dish, nice to look at, but was wrong having to eat directly out of it. Not what I have come to expect from antipodeans in the UK. NOT worth the £16. Also sat next to an extremely ill-placed coat rack which, when overloaded, fell into my dinner. No acknowledgment by staff as my friends had to pick peoples coats out of my food. Disappointed guys! Won't be going back I'm afraid.
Upside: Great Martini!

We ordered the pork belly whjich on the menu soudned delicious. What came were a few pork scratchings, overcooked and dry, some nice greenery and a few unidentifed though pleasant berries. This cost £15. You should not go away feeling starving after spending £15 on a cheap cut of meat. The service was - weird. The waitress, in love either with herself or the better looking single male customers, could scarcely give the time of day to ordinary folk. What it a pity .. It all started out so well ... Stinginess, vanity and carelessness are ruining this place.

We tried Caravan for a second time today, for breakfast, following a disastrous first visit. The coffee is good, no complaints there. The food less so... it reads very well on the menu with obvious influence from Providores. In reality it isn't as good. Smoked black pudding with roast apple and a fried egg came with one slice of underdone toast. The roast apple was actually more like a sauce, spread over the toast which made it quite wet. It was very sweet. Solid apple wedges would have been nicer. The black pudding had a good flavour. The egg too. For £9 it should have been spot on, a bit of green would not have gone amiss.
French corn toast was quite bland-again 1 slice. And their savoury muffins are THE saltiest I have ever eaten.
The staff are really nice though and very friendly. This place looks the part but I think for the money it could be a bit more generous and definitely more accurate.

Went fora quietish midweek lunch. The food wasn't wildy cheap - £50 including tip but no drinks - but between three of us we ordered six sharing plates.

The ambition of the dishes was extraordinary and we thought the food was delicious. All of the dishes were nearly faultless. The salt beef fritters and the squid pancake are worth the price of admission alone.

The staff were polite and attentive when we went. They also served tap water out to you without complaint - nice touch. Pity we weren't drinking because the wine selection looked quite reasonable as well.

I'm perplexed by the comments here about the staff, in my view they are some of the best in the city - they have actual personalities, without being pretentious, and were falling all over us last night.

We ordered about 4 small plates for dinner and would recommend the famous Oxtail as well as trying the eel - which was scary for me.

It's busy so you've gotta get in early or be ready to have some delicious drinks in the bar while waiting - but hey, that's what happens when word gets around about how great a place is.

Definitely worth the excursion for dinner, and the brunch I had there was also to die for.

I have heard so much this place and finally made an effort to go there for lunch today.

Food was fantastic .. the credit must go to the chef!

Service was really bad .. the wait staff were like a bunch of headless chicken wondering around aimlessly. I did not mind to wait for 5 to 1- mins as being told. But not being attended after 10 mins was frustrating .. plenty of empty seats and they were offered to customers who came after us.

To keep the story short .. unless the management is doing something about the system of customer waiting, there will lose a lot of business, certainly i will be one of them.

My advice to the customers .. grab a seat on your own if you see any empty ones, there is no need to wait for them to call you, as they will NOT!

With the so bad service, they dare to include service charge in the bill?

Tonight was my second time having dinner at Caravan and it was brilliant once again. Shared a bunch of the small plates (the highlight of which was the oxtail and polenta) and had a really great evening. Staff are super friendly and helpful. Definitely going back to check out the brunch menu soon.

I am surprised by some of these comments...I have been four times to Caravan and always looking for an excuse to go back (twice for lunch as well as dinner with friends and weekend brunch) It is consistently great. The service brilliant, and the food exceptional.

If you haven't indulged in the sharing plates before you have to get your head around that but otherwise it is an awesome experience. (better for small groups though) The coffee great too.

Yes sometimes there is a wait but when the restaurant is as rammed on the weekends as I have seen it - you would expect that. It's not Nando's.

Caravan had the worst service I have ever experienced.
To be fair, I thought they had relatively nice food. but the customer service destroyed my experience at caravan.
The manager offered a table to my friend an i a table when the entire restaurant was empty under the condition that we empty out when it gets crowded. we first ordered a bottle of wine considering we needed some time to order the food. the manager came over as soon as the waitor went away with out order saying that we can't have a table if we are just going to drink. HA!
alright, we ordered. the manager came over as soon as we were done with our meal that we need to evacuate. we went over to the bar side, but he insisted if we weren't going to buy any more drinks we need to move.
i dont' know caravan, were we not expensive for you?

WOW... Im so surprised by the negative comments as I went for dinner and I thought Caravan was fantastic. The staff were super friendly, attentive but not over the top and the food was amazing. I'm on hold booking another night out there soon.

The food was average but the staff were very snooty. Overall I will say it is a bad experience and we are not going back there.

With very snooty service and okay food I would definitely NOT be going there again!!!

What an amazing place! We went to Caravan for dinner, the menu was varied, fresh and delicious (the asparagus with miso and a poached egg was to die for!). The staff were fab too, attentive without being in your face, nothing was a problem. Cant wait to go again.

Had brunch here on Sunday. We cycled all the way from Putney bright and early to ensure we got a table - which was necessary as there was a queue of people waiting for it to open! We sat in the sun and had the most delicious, tasty fry up and the most beautiful creamy coffees. I thought the service was great - very friendly and they were constantly topping up our water glasses. Well done for making it such a hit so quickly!

We went for brunch this morning - food was great, but service was either rude or lacking depending on who you were speaking to. Coffee was good and the brunch menu was interesting, a bit more than just a fry up with corn bread french toast with avocado and bacon. It's a shame because the service was so poor we won't be returning.

I've had brunch here the last two weekends and it's superb. Food, service and coffee all hit the mark. It gets busy, but I never had to wait more than 15 mins for a table.

i tried to go here on sunday at 5pm and they were closed, they close at 4pm contrary to the hours you list above.

Had the brunch experience here which involved burnt toast and watery, late coffee. Cashing in on the Aussie cafe type scene seems a good idea in principle but It's clearly early days for this place. And calling the staff rude and unfriendly would be doing them a favour.

we moved to london a few months ago, our friends live right down the street from caravan, we had a wonderful breakfast and the flat whites they serve are the best! I still go back to buy coffee from them.

Had been in Caravan on a thurdsay for dinner. The food was good. The service's a bit slow and unprofessional but It's something that could get fixed easily. The decoration doesn't say much...
Wouldn't mind to go back but there are better places around like Moro or Medcalf to have a meal and a bit of fun.

Had a lovely brunch her last weekend. Divine baked eggs and the hubby loved his fry up with a side of black pudding. We had to wait a while for a table but no surprise there as it's got to be one of the best brunches in London. Certainly much better than anything you get in Islington. Can't wait to head back for dinner!

Went for lunch today and whilst the menu is good - the portions are small, order sides! We waited for a long time for our coffee - in fact it came half way through the meal when people beside us (who ordered after us) got theirs first. We ordered their filter coffee- terrible! Watery and cold. Also their flatwhites are not that good....all in all the trek up there from West London wasn't really worth it.

Went for brunch today having read a rave review and can honestly say we both thought it was TERRIBLE. Do not bother to have brunch here. The bar area smelled strongly of burnt toast as we left, which didn't surprise us as the toast we were given was burnt and the chorizo was not so much grilled as cinderised. A brief summary of the "brunch experience" (a grisly warning to those considering!):

Very runny scrambled eggs (not really cooked).

Way too much butter used (every slice of toast sopping with butter and when they say "crumpets with too much butter" they mean it!)

Both brunches really greasy.

Toast served with the fry up totally soggy from runny egg piled on top - inedible!

Sloppy service - one brunch brought out first but the other quite a bit later with no apology or explanation. Missing cutlery. No real customer service feel.

Over-priced.

Plus points were:

Excellent coffee
Nice mushrooms
Lemonade
Location
Nice vibe from other customers
Some pleasant individual members of staff
Tap water served as a matter of course

We won't be going back. The Elk in the Woods up in Islington is consistently good both for food and service and anyone reading this considering trying Caravan, please consider trying the Elk instead. Or go for Exmouth Market but eat tapas at Moro (we have been four or five times and each time the food has been amazing).

Great restaurant this. Food, staff, ambience all first class. I've been many times. They get mobbed on weekends given their brunch and coffee is perhaps the best in London (and they have outside seating). I like it best in the evenings. Lovely wine list too. And where did they get that amazing stuffed peacock?

The service was good; friendly and attentive staff, the atmosphere nice. They brought separate 'mise-en-bouche' for the vegetarians. The chicken and mushroom consomme was good but very salty as was another dish we had. Lovely refreshing non-alcoholic cocktail. We took many little dishes to share: cornbread, oxtail, squids and had a nice evening. Would recommend it.

Unfortunately we did experience the awkwardness of a cafe just starting out. The staff I am afraid were very slow and it took us 1.5 hours to have brunch. However, the food was amazing, so if service could be a bit quicker we would be back in a heart beat.

i tried to go on sunday at 5.30pm and it was closed, with no sign saying what opening hours it had. very disappointing. but it did have a menu up, and the prices look pretty steep.

Don't stop at the brunch - we had the small plates of oxtail, squid and soup which are to die for.... topped off with a flat white of course.

These hours appear to be wrong... we tried to go this evening around 6pm and the sign on the door said it was open 10am-4pm on Sat and Sun.

Great little caffee!!!