Name: Honey & Smoke
Item: Honey & Smoke
Rating: 4
Author: Harden's editor

Honey & Smoke

Price*

£59

££

Food

Very Good

Service

Good

Ambience

Average

Honey & Co’s big new brother – a reimagined middle eastern grill house

216 Great Portland Street, London, W1W 5QW, 020 7388 6175 Website

Closed today

Harden's survey result

2020
2019
2018

Summary

Price*

£59

££

Food

Very Good

Service

Good

Ambience

Average

* Based on a three course dinner, half a bottle of wine, coffee, cover charge, service and VAT.

“Plentiful and nourishing Israeli dishes” (with “a delicious mix of spices and textures”) win waves of praise for Honey & Co’s younger, larger grill-house spin-off, south of Great Portland Street tube. It’s “a busy and lively” (“frantic” and “very noisy”) venue, popular with large parties, but whose “1970s-style plastic moulded chairs” can seem “strangely utilitarian” (unless you are someone who appreciates “the authenticity of Middle Eastern café culture”).

Summary

Price*

£50

££

Food

Very Good

Service

Good

Ambience

Average

* Based on a three course dinner, half a bottle of wine, coffee, cover charge, service and VAT.

“Delicious, copious and very original Middle Eastern cuisine” inspires nothing but praise for Honey & Co’s bigger sibling, south of Great Portland Street tube – a modern take on the grill house – even if ratings support those who feel “it’s not quite as excellent as when it first opened”. “Shame the decor is so unwelcoming”, too – “it looks like a converted office” and can seem “awkward and uncomfortable”, especially in comparison with the “café intimacy” of its stablemate.

Summary

Price*

£49

££

Food

Exceptional

Service

Very Good

Ambience

Average

* Based on a three course dinner, half a bottle of wine, coffee, cover charge, service and VAT.

“Whoa, brilliant!” – “Honey & Co’s bigger sibling” opened to rightful acclaim in late 2016, south of Great Portland Street tube. A modern take on a Middle Eastern grill house, it serves a “seemingly endless array” of “spectacular but completely honest” mezze (“you rediscover dishes you thought you knew like hummus or falafel, and you marvel at simple raw veg which feels re-invented”). On the downside, the site is “a bit lacking in ambience”, but given its “upbeat” and “enthusiastic” staff most reporters don’t quibble . Top Menu Tip – “I’d run a marathon just for the cheesecake!”

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