Tate Modern Restaurant

Reviews for Tate Modern Restaurant

• 4

  Tate Modern Restaurant

  7th Floor, Tate Modern Bankside London SE1 9TG uk
  
  Browners

  22nd March 2008

  Blue pill or red pill?

  Current

  Swallow the blue pill and you emerge in a dungeon serving offal, greasy meat and portions so large you feel like you're in Las Vegas.
  
  Choose the red pill and you're whisked off to a penthouse with a view like St Peter gets from his gates, serving delicate, feminine food in a venue steeped in culture.
  
  We went to Tate Modern's private view of their Duchamp, Man Ray and Picabia exhibition. Our general feeling was that the three of them were essentially very witty, artistic commentators on the world of art and culture. They could almost be seen as the grand fathers of post-modernism. It's an exhibition full of clever parodies, knowing pastiches and inspired cultural commentary. We pottered upstairs to the buzzing restaurant to chat about all the ideas we'd had on our way round.
  
  We had cured salmon and smoked duck for starter. The duck came with a chicory salad with a bitter orange dressing. It made for a dish full of clashing contrasts. Sweet, smokey duck punched in the face by the bitter salad... in a pleasing way.
  
  Cowie's salmon was delicious. Cured in a lime dressing it was delicately balanced and as feminine as starters come. Tom Ilic's manly offal this was not! These starters oozed artistic, feline charm. Not the kind of food you want when you've just come back from rugby training. More the kind of grub you want to look at, inhale and not get fat! I swear you could eat these dishes all day and lose weight!
  
  I had a Dover sole with a gorgeous caper butter sauce. the flesh teased away from the bone like only sole does. Soft, delicate and buttery, it was the perfect follow up to my bitter sweet duck. Cowie had an attractive piece of trout in a thin vegetable broth. Cowie was in heaven. It's the kind of meal that girls like Cowie crave. Light, interesting, attractive and well balanced. You get home not weighed down with the hefty fare you get at places like the Anchor and Hope and Tom Ilic.
  
  The blue pill or the red pill... there's a time and a place for both.

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• 2

  Tate Modern Restaurant

  7th Floor, Tate Modern Bankside London SE1 9TG uk
  
  cityman

  27th October 2007

  what happened?

  Current

  I used to visit the Tate Modern level 7 restaurant frequently, though until recently, hadn't been for the last couple of years or so. There's still the same old East German attitude to seating, where you roll up, they tell you they're full and they so clearly aren't, but once you've penetrated the defences, the food was usually mostly reliable. No longer. But what shocked me the most on my recent visit were the prices. What's happened? Has Gordon Ramsay taken over? 12.95 for some fairly average and almost cold pasta. Are they kidding? 9.95 for some 'devilled' crab! A miniscule portion of the stuff and it didn't taste great either. And drinks prices that are now off the scale. You used to be able to get a decent dinner for two, with wine, for around 60 pounds. Try 100-120 pounds now. The service is still the same, ambling pace, where different people irregularly show up to bring different dishes or drinks, and the place certainly hasn't had any renovations. So why the massive price hike and what justifies it? It certainly ain't the food. Avoid!

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• 5

  Tate Modern Restaurant

  7th Floor, Tate Modern Bankside London SE1 9TG uk
  
  Dimitrios

  16th September 2007

  Nice view

  Current

  I went yesterday to tate Modern Restaurant. The view was nice, since it is next to the river. The swordfish was delicious and the serving quite good. Nice place to go.

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• 3

  Tate Modern Restaurant

  7th Floor, Tate Modern Bankside London SE1 9TG uk
  
  DanWilkinson

  2nd August 2007

  Never mind the view...

  Current

  Like most people, I'm a big fan of the Tate Modern. I wander in whenever I'm around, just to be generally in awe of the place and to swing by some favourite pieces, but I'd never visited the 7th floor restaurant until today. Have to be honest, wouldn't normally have chosen a gallery restaurant, but it came recommended so I took a chance.
  
  It's a chance well taking. Firstly, the view is one of the best in London, taking in the panorama from Southwark Bridge all the way round more or less to Blackfriars. This gets you St Paul's, the gherkin (although that might put you off) and basically a massive wodge of old London, which is somewhat distracting in the best possible way. The room itself is very sparely done out, which helps balance the experience, I guess.
  
  Man cannot eat on views alone though, and I'm happy to say the food is more than a match, with interesting takes on familiar bits and pieces and good staples done extremely well. A cricket bat-sized piece of battered cod on a mountain of golden chips sailed past which looked mighty tempting, but being in my unforgiving work trousers (twas lunch), I opted for a salad.
  
  Said salad was excellent from start to finish, translating the traditional Italian vitello tonnato into a salad of poached veal with a light tuna mayonnaise, nonpareil capers and cherry tomatoes. Amazingly, the veal was absolutely perfectly cooked, tender and still bearing a faint rose tint. From what I could see from my companions' plates, everything else on the menu bore the same deft touch.
  
  Service, ambience and so on were all about par for a Thursday lunch in that part of town, efficient, bustling and canteen-y, and with some non-alcoholic drinks and coffees came to about 20 a head, which I reckon is tremendous value. I'm giving this one three stars as I'm feeling stingy, but I'm keen to go back of an evening to really put it through its paces.
  
  A similarly shiny performance might even garner another shiny star, who knows. Recommended for impressing out-of-towners during the day and (so I'm told) dates in the evening.

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