Les Deux Salons

Ate here New Year's Eve and had a lovely meal, good service and lively atmosphere. Would recommend to families for good value.

I read this review and looked at the comments below and decided to go with the expert view rather than listen to people's comments on the basis that those who shout loudest are generally complaining.

Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. The restaurant was appalling. The service derisory and the food no better than a Cafe Rouge, and that is being seriously generous. Some of the highlights include the manger coming over to the table with 'ta da' when after one of our party's main dish arrived after some trouble and after everyone else were putting down their knives and forks. The waiter advising us that their rare came up very rare and we should order a medium rare for the rib of beef for two. It arrived well done - not even slightly red- and the waiter's response was 'we have troubles controlling the grill.' Our bill came to just over £300 for 5 people, only two having starters and two having desserts, one person not drinking, and only three coffees. Normally I dont write these reviews - see reasons given earlier- and I normally wouldnt complain about the charge, but I have never left a restaurant feellng so ripped off. Not only by the restaurant, but this appalling and grossly inaccurate review. How easy is it to get a review so wrong. Isn't that the point of Time Out? I was embarassed to have chosen the restaurant on the basis of a Time Out review and will not do so again!!

Really disapointing! I think this place goes on the back of the reputation of it's sister restaurant - Arbutus. We booked to go here on bonfire night - pre fireworks so we had the pre threatre menu. The reservations staff were great accomodating us as we were a group of 6+. The menu looked ok but the food was not good - certainly nowhere near the standard of Arbutus (sister restaurant). The waiting staff were terrible (unattentive then rushing us / aloof / sleeves hanging in food during service / introusive leaning over / splashing wine over the table when pouring).
Food was poor & cold. Wouldn't recommend it & wouldn't go back - even if it was free!

I was very suprised how terrible the service was at Les Deux Salons. We went for afternoon tea and were left for at least 20 minutes before our order was taken, sitting in a deserted rear section of the restaurant where no air con could reach us. After eventually taking our tea orders they then left us for another 20 mins before our food order was taken - when another waiter appeared to take our tea orders (again). The tea took another age to arrive, and finally arrived (after a prompt) long after the sandwiches and cakes did. The service was overall dreadful, we asked twice (over the phone in advance and on arrival) for a birthday cake that never came, it took hours to pay the bill and the cakes were ok, not spectacular. Not worth it for the money.

I've eaten dinner at Les Deaux Salons several times and it has been delicious but the afternoon tea there was seriously disappointing. An empty room with only one other table of diners, no background music so the room was silent, a small plate of dry sandwiches (and we were told we would have to pay extra for refils), the scones were delicious but the 'cake' course was just just 4 chunky, stodgy slices of cake that were too filling, too heavy and too samey to bother eating. Truly disappointing.

My parents and siblings visited me 1 month ago and they are very difficult when it turns to food/restaurants (We are French, they like only good French cuisine so you can imagine how stressed I was when it came to choose the restaurant!).
The food was very very good, all my family loved it, the service was rapid, and the bill was not so high.
I will definitely go back there and I recommend to all of you.

I visited with my parents for lunch just over a month ago, and our experience was lovely.
Service was attentive, relaxed and charming perhaps but certainly not laid back. The food excellent, with the leek tart and the rabbit particularly so.
I was a little concerned about the decor maybe being gimmicy, but I was won over by the quality and attention to detail, I enjoyed the feel of the place.

Before I went to LDS last Friday I was prepared to take a chance of bad service and food that mentioned here by fellow reviewers, and I was pleased they didn't reflect the reality. We sat at the bar and had a great time, the service was attentive and charming, wine and food were delicious, even we only sampled one of the starters - salt cod brandade. When we were paying, the waiter seemed pleased we enjoyed our time there, and said come to have dinner next time and they will look after us properly. I know they were only words, but I regarded that was very good customer service.

I was extremely disappointed by Les Deux Salons, especially given Guy's rave review above. Granted, the service and wine list (particularly the inclusion of the carafe option) were both pretty good, and the decor was nice enough if a little forced. The food however, was really quite terrible. The foie gras was unpleasantly hard and was clearly served straight from the fridge, the 'toasted sourdough' accompanying the Cornish sardines barely passed for croutons. The bouillabaisse was incredibly rich and over-seasoned, no bread was served to accompany the rouille and I was disappointed when informed that it was made without any shellfish. The minted lamb was OK but the presentation was slapdash and the dish was luke-warm when it arrived at the table. Desserts were both mediocre chain-quality fare. Overall Les Deux Salons didn't meet expectation and left us feeling like we'd been ripped off.

We had dinner at Les deux Salons last Saturday on our way to Covent Garden. It was - by far - the worst meal in a very very long time. The food was consistently cold - the cod brandade was lukewarm at best - the steak was almost as raw as a steak tartare...pretty much impossible to eat. The terrine was 75% fat. The service was as cold as the food. We are great admirers of next door Terroir and decided to give it a try. Should not have done so. The room is pretty and the facilities are very clean, but that is about it. This has to be the ultimate tourist trap. Avoid it at all costs. To add insult to injury, when we were asked how we liked the place and answered that to be frank not so much as the food was cold the answer was in line with the overall experience "too bad"....

Attractive decor and good general Brasserie ambiance; wine by the carafe is a good idea and enables you to discover more expensive options but the Argentinian wine we ordered was too warm as was the overall temperature in the restaurant!
The food was acceptable but nothing to write home about.
Service was generally shabby and underwhelming: loads of staff prancing around clearly disinterested in the diners!
Feels like this restaurant has all the ingredients but not quite mastered the recipe.

Went for the first time last night - I have to say it was some of the best food (across all three courses) I have had from a (relatively) new opening. Veal ravioli was spectacular and very different, the good portion of monkfish was perfectly cooked and the lemon tart the best I've ever had (and I've had a lot - I use it as a benchmark). Very good value at £55ph including wine and coffee: half the price of some other grand openings with food that does not match this standard. Beautiful surroundings if, like me, you like the traditional brasserie style.

Downside: the service was VERY slow (an hour until the food started arriving) and not exactly with a smile. I also agree with others who found the entrance/front desk a bit chaotic. They do need to work on the front-of-house operation. And the spectacular bottle of Gamay we started with was the last one!

Avoid. Shoddy, slapdash service: disinterested, disengaged & hugely disappointing. Les Deux Salons is authentically Parisian in terms of its complacement, soul-sapping service. This so-laidback-it's-insulting approach means I can't comment upon this establishment's culinary delivery. I booked a table mid-week for 2.15pm. I arrived on time and was seated immediately. I chose my order within minutes, but wasn't asked for it. I was able to order an aperitif at 2.25, and it arrived around five minutes later, but my 'waiter' moved on so quickly I wasn't able to place my food order. By 2.40, I had finished my drink but was yet to be asked for my order. The 'waiting' staff milled around, clinking crockery and chattering to each other, but nicely avoiding any customer eye contact. After waiting 25 minutes for service, I managed to attract attention and finally placed my food order. I was then told that my choice was unavailable, although this fact hadn't been pointed out when I was seated and handed the not overly-extended menu. I decided to leave, but not before I was asked to pay for my aperitif. There are thousands of restaurants in London more worthy of my, and your, custom. Forget, even if I can't forgive, this one.

We had a wonderful meal served with excellent timing (from the pre theatre menu). Cocktails were lovely, and the service was great. No complaints at all.

I was looking forward to visiting this well reviewed restaurant, as it is convenient for the theatre. Cant be done, because we are two families of 4 and 3, They have a totaly fixed non negotiable policy of 6 per table. How about two tables next to each other, that I book now. Cant be done, not company policy. What, its company policy to turn down two bookings !
Having just read the recent reviews, maybe its best, because a restaurant that already thinks its too important to accommodate its customers is doomed to fail.

Le Deux Salon is a good looking restaurant no doubt with an excellent pedigree. I went in early December and there are still certainly teething problems mostly with the service. The entrance is designed badly and there is a scrum at the door to get in and out and collect coats because there is not enough space. The bottle of white wine (a very palatable and reasonably priced NZ sauvignon blanc) was slightly too warm and the crowd of people just drinking at the bar encroached on the dining space and did not look very good.

Service was very slow and 3 mistakes were made just for our table. We were served another tables drinks, then another tables main course and finally we were presented with the dessert menu after we had already ordered them.

Pro's: Pre-Theatre menu is well priced, wine list is good and not overpriced and restaurant interior looks nice.

Con's: Some basic design flaws with the reception and bar area, waiting staff are still learning which table is which and are far too slow to take orders.

Overall nice place but won't be going back for a long time to give them time to sort themselves out. Would have felt aggrieved if I had gone a la carte and spent lots of money on what was a mediocre meal. Will do better im sure though with time.

I agree with Debi Nash. Will not return. The food was very mediocre at best - all served cold and greasy. Starter of red onion, fig and goat cheese tart was ok. Steak tartar was overwhelmed with capers and lacked spice. Waiter suggested lamb as rabbit saddle was 'off' the menu (at 7 on Sat. night). He suggested I order sides since the lamb came with nothing. Ordered chips - just ok. Spagetti squash - tasteless, cold and greasy. Lamb had a very unpleaseant after taste and smell. Perhaps it was mutton ? Lamb was served (cold) with beans which were inedible -butter, cream-- cold grease. Sadly the waiter didn't know what the lamb was served with ? Loads of staff floating around the place but oddly not one came over to ask how our meal was - not even asked during the akward silence of when paying the bill. THe table next to us complained because 'they could find the 'stuffing' in the Plaice dish - 2 waiters showed to point out where the stuffing was - we all had a good laugh. We decided to cut our losses and leave before the desserts... I wonder what day and time the critics hit this place -

What a shame you had a bad time Debi! I went a couple of weeks ago and had a wonderful dinner, good service, and no problems with the wine. The incredibly mixed reviews suggest it's taking a while to hit its stride; I hope it becomes more reliable soon as my experience, and the reviewer's, show it has the potential to be a great restaurant.

I find this review quite surprising, I couldn't disagree more.

My husband and I are big fans of Wild Honey (though not Arbutus), so were intrigued by the idea of Les Deux Salons. We went for dinner on a late Friday night I suppose about a week and a half after they had opened.

I felt the interior was a let down and did actually think at the time that it looked like a cheap themed chain restaurant. There are nice touches such as the lights over the bar, the bar itself and the tiled floor, but other than that the finishes looked cheap. It doesn't look or feel anything like The Wolseley. At 10pm on a Friday the lighting was up far too high and was actually quite harsh and uninviting.

The first wine we tried to order, a Pinot Noir from Oregon, was unavailable. For food we had the terrine to share to start and this was disappointing. The quality of the meat seemed to be lacking for me and the texture was dog food like. We didn't finish it. Not a patch on the one at Terroirs next door. We then waited for about 40 minutes for our mains without any explanation or comment, and then when our food did come out my husband's ended up on the floor after waiters collided in front of us. We then had another good 20 minute wait without much of an apology, and when our food eventually arrived my husband's ox cheeks were cold. Despite being cold he said they were ok. As it was late I only had the fish soup and this was unpleasant, either too much Pernod or it had been left reducing for too long and became bitter. I didn't finish it and this was noticed by the waiter and he offered to take it off the bill and did then apologise for what was turning out to be quite a bad experience. We didn't bother with dessert as by this point we had had enough and wanted to go.

The wine by the carafe is a good idea, but wines by the glass are not listed on the menu and therefore we weren't sure if you could get a single glass. When we asked the waitress we did get a single glass, but as these aren't on the menu you're not sure how much you're paying.

I understand they had just opened not long before but the service was quite bad and the food not very good. We won't be returning. If you're in the neighbourhood then Terroirs is far better and if you're looking for somewhere grand with a charming interior and lovely atmosphere then go to The Wolseley.