River Cafe

We used to love this place. This review is written in the expectation of having a lunch in a great West London restaurant. It is not great any more. Why 2 stars only? Food is good and affordable. The desert menu hasn’t changed in decades. Good and bad thing at the same time so + 1 star Atmosphere… have a look at the builders working outside. Just shocking considering reputation of this place. 0 stars Booking / seating: coming with children to this place is not great experience. You will be set at the front of the room were all waiters mill around. Not a great experience. Also front desk staff fairly unfriendly. 0 stars Temperature: this place has not got an air con and it seems it doesn’t have extractor fans either. You’ll leave smelling like Italian cheese. We’ve been here many times and this is the first time we noticed. 0 stars Cleanliness: poor. Look at the pictures. Not rated as this is embarrassing Nostalgia value: +1 star as we used to love this place Finally it was great to see Ruth Rodgers, founder, are the venue. But we couldn’t escape thinking that this place needs a new management to shake things up and get it going again. Currently it feels like just some regular place which you don’t want to put an effort in.

Cute little place to stop for a quick lunch. Staff are absolutely lovely! Very friendly and welcoming. Food was average, whoever made the quiche needs to immediately get retrained as its not a quiche. It’s an omelette with a hard base…. Very dissatisfied and disappointed with this. The sandwich was great though!

a fabulous spot for lunch, the atmosphere reminds me of a cafeteria that you get in a museum. food was enjoyable but for the price paid, i expected a bit more wow. defiantly would go again but not anytime soon, many families were there as there with an outdoor area for kids to run around in.

Wow - in one word, Wow! You can feel the night is about to get good when you walk into the doors and are greeted by beaming smiles, warmth of a kitchen and the aroma of butter and garlic. We arrived early 45 min before our table was booked and without hesitation we were ushered to a understated but chic bar where we waited for our dinner companions and enjoyed two excellent cocktails. Please try the whisky sour if that’s your thing, had a lemon rind addition which was very special. We met our dinner companions and got our table where we were very quickly transported to the very best of Italy. The simple fact is everything is great. I understand the menu changes daily. I will need to go again to verify but the idea is brilliant. Smallish menu but everything has been chosen with freshness in mind and executed brilliantly. My only suggestion is go with a few people who don’t mind sharing so you can enjoy as many dishes as possible. My highlight was the turbot with mushrooms and beans. Seasoned well, a generous amount of butter and olive oil and amazing in season mushrooms. Bravo/Brava to the chefs

Quite mixed reviews here especially if you read what others have to say. It is a great place for a special occasion and the food is good, but it is expensive and overpriced. I think it needs to balance itself out, but then the customers keep coming anyway and it’s a struggle to even get a table these days. Worth a try, and decide if you would come back - I would, but perhaps not as often.

Such great standard of dishes! What blew our socks off were the veal shin main and the almond tart dessert. The wood oven lobster was cooked so well and was also amazing! Pasta was a bit average though. All other dishes were very good and all round delicious.

We enjoyed fabulous dinner at The River Café recently. Fantastic quality food, delicious wine, excellent service and great atmosphere. You could tell it was going to be a good night as soon as you walk in. Excellent staff - Tom Downer and his team were amazing...spot on! We were very well looked after. Thank you. Can't wait to go back again soon

I've been lucky enough to eat here couple of times as a guest from wine tastings. The food is exceptional, you can definitely taste that the ingredients are brought from high end Italian companies. I had lunch in the private room and the service was spot on each time. A little on the expensive side for my pocket, but then again I didn't pay this time. If I don't think about the price is definitely a good restaurant.

The River Cafe was suggested to us by a colleague and we were absolutely blown away by our experience. Our server, Louie, was so delightful, helpful, and attentive. He assisted us in choosing creative drinks and entree choices. Having visited Italy numerous times, I was truly impressed by the menu and how memorable each dish was - I could argue it is better or on par with some of the best restaurants I’ve visited in Italy. We will most certainly be back!!!

Had an amazing dinner at The River Cafe. Booked a month and a half in advance. The food was absolute perfection. I got the ravioli, sea bass and tiramisu. Relaxing, elegantly understated.