Had dinner here tonight (Sunday) and while the food was tasty, the experience was overall disappointing. I'm visiting from the U.S. and I left the dinner choice for the evening to my friends who live here in London. They were excited to try BiBo, and given it is located in my hotel, of course I was excited for the convenience and trying something that was already on my list.
Our reservation was at 7:30pm. From the get-go we felt rushed (around 8pm we were told that the kitchen closed in 5min so we needed to rush our orders). Service was a bit scattered. We had overlapping servers asking for drink orders, then when it came to ordering food, they mentioned several dishes were unavailable for the night. No matter, we figured we could make do with what we could. The croquetas de jamón ibérico (ham croquettes), Spanish tortilla, glazed aubergine were delicious. Seafood paella was good but lukewarm and halfway through we noticed it was missing mussels in the "mussels and prawns" description. When we alerted the waitress, she just said she was sorry the other waiter didn't inform us. Still paid full £45 for the altered dish.
90min in (9pm) there was a mad dash to close us out - dessert menus hastily dropped (obviously we opted out as we didn't want to keep the staff any longer), lights on BRIGHT when check was dropped off 15 past. We get it, you want to close and there are only a few tables in the establishment. But I felt terrible for my friends who came all the way to meet me expecting an elevated dining experience, when it felt like we were dining at a restaurant at the tail end of its hey day (if it had one), and constantly felt like an inconvenience/rushed even though we would have naturally respected moving at a quicker pace than usual without being forced to.
Good food, but don't expect it to be any sort of 'scene' you're seeking. read more