Joe Allen restaurant
13 Exeter Street, covent Garden
WC2E 7DT London

Inside Joe Allen restaurant

There were four of us for lunch at Joe Allen. I had been to this place once, about 4 years ago, and my recollection was that it was not too bad (or rather, my recollection of their duck liver was that it wasn’t bad – I couldn’t recall much else). So despite some misgivings about an American chain restaurant, off we went.

The restaurant is located on Exeter Street, moments from the Covent Garden. It is a basement restaurant, so quite dark inside, but they use this to their advantage with the decor. We hadn’t booked, but were quickly shown to a central table.

Three of the four of us ordered starters – which were 2 black pudding served on a bed of steamed spinach and topped by a poached egg and hollandaise sauce (£13.00) and a pumpkin soup (£5.50). As main courses, we took a half lobster served with pasta (£19.50), 2 spinach salads (£19.00) and a chicken caesar salad (£15.00). As drinks, we just took two bottles of still water (£7.00) as we had a lot of work to get through after lunch.

Black pudding with spinach and poached egg

My starter was the black pudding with spinach and poached egg. This dish could have been quite decent, but for the amount of salt the chef had seasoned it with. I’msure I had a week’s worth of salt in this single meal!  Even the spinach had not simply been steamed, but boiled in salt water. Really, I have no idea what any of it actually tasted like (texture was fine – I could tell that much) as I couldn’t taste anything much beyond the salt. Really, a ruined meal. I ate the egg, and a little bit of the black pudding, but 90% of the spinach returned to the kitchen to take its rightful place in the trash. One of my companions had the same dish – and the same problem (albeit I think her tolerance level was slightly higher than mine – she ate at least half of hers). The soup was reported by its recipient to be fine.

Chicken caesar salad

As main course, I had a chicken caesar salad. Once again though, it was too salty. Who puts salt in a salad? The chicken was a grilled and sliced breast – which thankfully had not had the salt treatment – and was edible but a bit too dry. The recipients of the spinach salads reported those to be OK. I’m not so sure about the lobster though – it looked a rather miserable dish (no photo, sorry). Its recipient did say it was fine, but I have a suspicion that he was just being polite (since I was paying). In any case, going on looks alone, its not something I’d be in any great hurry to order for myself.

Cost & conclusion: The final bill came to £88.90 for the four of us (including 9.90 already added as gratuity – no pretence even in this case that it was “optional”). Actually the service was fine, notwithstanding that a waitress spilled a bottle of water into the lap of one of my guests (for which she was very apologetic). Even so though, whether or not to tip, and how much, should be left to the discretion of the customer. As for the food, I don’t think I’ll be back. Sorry for the poor Blackberry Curve photos!