Silk Room Restaurant & Champagne Bar

Flower23

silk room is the best 25th June 2009

1 found this helpful

i've been a few times now with my boyfriend and my friends and every time i go its been great fun. the food is all local and really tasty and the staff are very friendly and helpful. also its a small restaurant and is very different from all the other places in newcastle which i like. i'd definitely recommend it and will be back very soon.

martin157

Lives up to high expectations....a must try 31st March 2009

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I had heard good things about the Silk Room and after a few friends recommended the place very highly I thought i'd give it a try.
I decided to go out with a few friends on a Thursday evening and I'm really glad I did as the restaurant and evening as a whole was excellent.
I have visited most of the restaurants in Newcastle now but Silk Room is up there in the top two or three for service, food and atmoshere.
On arriving at Silk Room I was met by a very pleasant and attentive waitress who asked if we would like a drink first before dining. After having a glass of champagne from the entensive drinks menu we moved through to the restaurant which was almost full by this point. Surprising for a thursday night but I later realised why as the quality is high from start to finish.
The atmosphere was warm, friendly and inviting and our table was situated along a booth area which was comfortable and spacious.
The decor is chic, stylish and modern and not (as previously mentioned by a reviewer) anything like a strip club!!
The wine list was small but the quality on offer was good. We opted for a south african sauvgnon blanc which was crisp and enjoyable.
Onto the food and I opted for the king prawns which were well cooked and accompanied by a light butter and garlic sauce. A great start and not expensive at £5.95 seeing that I got four large king prawns. Very happy. My friends were equally impressed with their choices of pate and salmon fishcakes.
The mains did not disapoint either. I went for the local rib eye steak with a peppercorn sauce which was succulent and cooked to perfection - medium rare - and came with homemade chips. Excellent.
My friends had the sea bream and the kangaroo fillet steak and their clean plates said it all. They were as pleased as I was.
By this stage we were getting rather full and whilst we could've managed a dessert we decided to finish with some liquor coffees which finished the meal off excellently.
Interestingly, it was owner of the Silk Room who brought our bill over which was as much a surprise as a welcome addition and something which sets the Silk Room apart from some of the faceless restaurants I have been too.
Overall, the Silk Room delivers on almost every level. The food is great and well priced, the atmoshere is relaxed and inviting and the dining experience is very enjoyable.
I have returned with my girlfriend who loves the Silk Room and we will definitely be going back.

skipchris

Promises so much... 26th April 2008

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I announced to Mim that we were off to the "Silk Room" for a friend's birthday; she sought assurances that we were indeed headed to a restaurant, not one of Newcastle's rapidly breeding strip bars. Dejectedly, I had to explain 'no' - this one of Newcastle's Coolest New Spots. After the meal, I dejectedly realised that the whole problem had been Silk Room's commonality with a strip club... Tempting you, tantalising you, but ultimately unrewarding, leaving you to go home feeling a bit used and dejected...

The menu sounds fabulous, offering a tempting and often exotic range of pizza, pasta, chicken, meat and fish, along with 'delicacies' such as Kobe burger and Crocodile Tail steak. The decor was pleasant: lots of mood lighting tassles, Laura Ashley-style prints and dark wood... You assume you're about to have a great meal, you're already eating that Kobe burger with your eyes, reclining on the leather couch...

...But then it all starts to go wrong. The service was stunningly bad. We were seated for ages before drinks were offered. The offered drinks (a lemonade and two beers) took an age to arrive (in a none-too-busy restaurant). Orders were taken fairly promptly, but food (we forewent starters) was slow to arrive. (Unlike drinks, this is forgivable, if the chef is busy or working on something truly special).

The food was where it really all went wrong though. Mim's seafood pasta was poor. My £9 pizza was OK, but no better than a £5 pizza from any of Newcastle's identikit italian places. If I'm paying £9 for a pizza, it should be delicious.

Three of our party had the famed Kobe burger. It was tasty-looking and well presented on a hefty slab of wood, but there was no clear consensus whether Kobe beef, when minced into a burger and sold for £18 is substantially better than Aberdeen Angus minced into a burger and sold for £12.

We mainly had dessert. I forgot to get the lowdown on my chums', but my mango sorbet was poor. It had clearly been melted and re-frozen, and as such was full of ice crystals.

The staff were, for the most part, pleasant and friendly, but completely inattentive. We almost resorted to rugby-tackling a waiter to order our wine; the bill was brought unasked for (big sin), yet I had to get up and take the cash and my card to the bar because the staff were occupied talking to eachother and some friends that had walked in.

A 10% service charge had been added to the bill. This is becoming common practice, but it's still completely deplorable and reeks of cash-grabbing desparation. It's all the more awkward when gratuities were going to be in short supply from our party due to the staff's indifference.

When paying by card, I was asked the customary "Was everything alright, sir". I wanted to grab him, sit him down, pour him some tea, and explain it all - explain why everything was wrong, and how he could maybe make it better... But I just looked at my shoes and answered "Yeah, fine"... Because that's truthfully what it was. Other than the poor pasta and sorbet, all seven of us had decent enough meals. We just spent a lot on them and weren't made to feel particularly welcome for doing so. We could've saved a couple of pennies and gone to Pizza Express.

Ultimately, to stretch an analogy to breaking point, if Silk Room is a strip bar, Newcastle offers a host of full-on brothels, albeit some disguised as massage parlours. And more importantly, a host of lovely, good looking girls you could take home to meet your mum.