Il profilo di eamon

Rather enjoyable Sardinian gaff in the heart of Victoria, which was the tragic setting for my last Qype supper. But at lunchtime.

So we ambled off here, a little too joyfully for my liking given the circumstances, and it was a suitable culinary choice. There are a fair helping of fish and seafood dishes, which will come as no surprise to any Sardo aficionados, and an appetizing selection of pizza too. I plumped for the latter, with sausage meat topping, and although they managed to get my request for no onions 100% wrong (which may say more about my poor command of the lingo, even though my wife is Italian, than their service), the standard was mightily impressive.

The prices are maybe ever so slightly more than average, but it’s well worth it. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly and I will leave it here before I break down in tears…..

I was expecting a quiff-laden, lip curling tribute gaff full of Shakin’ Stevens lookalikes, what I found was one solitary Elvis cardboard cut out and rather pricey food. The cost of the coffo also had me all shook up, and the standard was pretty poor.

Why three stars then? Well, as a hangout for mums and dads and their offspring, it is fantastic. One area seems like an impromptu nursery just broke out and when I was there briefly yesterday, the place was completely buzzing with young ’uns of various ages and their parents (most of whom were sporting those well posh prams).

I’d go again for the company and the facilities, but not for the coffo.

Shocking snob that I am, it’s not usual that I would end up at such an establishment but culinary needs must and all that. And to be fair, putting aside my dislike of such huge menus, the experience was pleasant.

The waiting staff were great: prompt, friendly and helpful. I ordered a unremarkable yet perfectly palatable pizza and considering the rate of knots I scoffed it at I would be a somewhat disingenuous diner if I was to grouch about the standard.

A bit shoddy, in my opinion. The room was cool: clean and comfy etc., but there was an error with the booking and rather than find a solution, the only response I got was apologies more hollow than from your average bonused-up banker.

The spa is great, that’s true, but surely when you pay for a hotel what you’re paying for is the use of all their facilities. Here, they’ll charge you £4 per hour (or £9 a day) for internet. Ludicrous, surely? Imagine if they tried to levy an extra charge if you wanted to use the bed! Mucky movies and phone, fair enough charge extra, but wifi profiteering I am not really down with.

Also, while I am being a moany pedant, they had also seen fit to sling some promotional banner over the hotel’s street sign making an already difficult place to find only discoverable to highly-trained sniffer dogs.

Good work. They’ve kept all that was great about the Quality Chop House, such as the old school Victorian style setting and the immense quality of cuisine emanating from the kitchen, but have wisely shed the previous incarnation’s only real flaw which was slightly ambivalent service. Back in the day when the QCH was still flourishing, The Guardian HQ was located a few minutes down the road. Since the latter moved on, the impact is obvious.

So this is a splendid and excellent new opening. You probably don’t need me to tell you that the menu is centred around those fleshy balls of delicious delight, but what I can let you know is that they knock ’em out to perfection. And at pretty good value as we. There are variations on the them and all manner of sides to keep your creative, culinary juices flowing. The two desserts I tried were also of the same impeccable class.

As mentioned before, the service is most pleasant, the setting is thankfully much the same and the quality much the same of the much-missed meat heaven that was the QCH. What a tasty comeback!

Everyone else does seem to have nailed it: the coffo is great, top-notch in fact, the setting is spacious and cool, the cakes are captivating to the eye and titillating to the taste buds but although the service is professional and courteous, smiles are certainly at a premium here.

I thought one of the baristas smiled, but it turned out he had something in his eye. Saying that, the coffo game is a serious business and I am joyously sending four stars these fellas’ most deserving way.

Oh dear, I had one tiny sip of coffo and there was very little bada and not much bing. Currently, as I pace around the room at 3am with my darling baby daughter (she’s half-Italian) the one thing that keeps my parental pecker up is the vision of rivers of caffeine flowing from a morning coffo, coursing through my needy veins.

The fact that I had one momentary taste of my double macchiato and promptly threw it in the bin speaks volumes, imagine William Burroughs crawling the walls of his NYC appartment only to finally satiate his smacky needs at 7am and then dump it in a dumpster in disgust at the shocking standard of merchandise.

Yes, that.

The Everyman chain does seem to have ventured into the mainstream over the last few years, an observation and not a criticism please note, and as previous reviewers have noted considering that the screens are pokier than a Facebook newcomer this is probably not the ideal venue for viewing a swashbuckling, blockbuster epic.

That said, if you’re looking for an intimate, quieter central London celluloid experience or a chance to catch something more on an arthouse tip, this could be a bit of you. The company as a whole also have pretty good special events at their venues.

Once the sartorial theatre of dreams, now sadly the house of pain. There’s even a picture of Andrei Arshavin in the window to remind us all how bad times are…..