Giaccos Bar - (Near Islington, South East)

5 /5 Matt Fairleigh: Amazing food and wine in a lovely little cafe setting, chef Jemma Harrison did a fantastic job

5 /5 Min B: Just went to the Jemma Harrison residency which was INSPIRED! What a talented chef, serving delightful plates. Still thinking about the red bisque gnocchi! Big up Kaunter!

1 /5 Phoebe Snelling: Last night was the first time ever my partner and i happened to be free in the evening to spend a Valentine’s together and it was the worst place we could have gone to. After waiting outside for 15 minutes to get a seat at the bar (but we booked a table) the waitress took my priceless instrument out of my hands and put it in the kitchen WITHOUT asking. On top of a pile of napkins?! The audacity. When i went to retrieve my instrument angrily (as you would when it’s priceless) the barman piped up and proceeded to harass me across the bar because i was not ok about it. ‘We’re not going to steal it!’ He exclaims. It does NOT matter. I’m a professional violinist. Not even my partner moves it without asking. The waitress didn’t even apologise!!! The barman proceeded to tell me to ‘calm down’ and then said have a good evening. He had nothing to do with the altercation, yet his voice was heard by all the people eating their meals at the bar. It was highly embarrassing and absolutely ruined the vibe of our evening. We were then told that they had run out of the squid ink pasta & pumpkin tortellini and asked if we would like just normal spaghetti instead. As we’re pescatarian we were happy for the change but not happy about the fact that they charged us full price of £21 for a completely different dish. It was just dry spaghetti with some mussels vongole sauce on it. They also forgot to bring us the focaccia starter and still billed us for it. We felt ignored throughout the evening, despite trying to politely catch the attention of the staff. The waitress then tried to take away a dish that was only half way eaten & that I was evidently still eating. Food was tasty but having a good chef doesn’t mean anything when the staff are rude and arrogant. I feel sad for the chef in residence having his passion slaughtered by the waiting staff. I will be telling many passionate food lovers about this experience as it was one of the worst i’ve had in years. I couldn’t believe!

1 /5 Richard Dobbins: Not one to leave reviews usually but I either usually only do when excellent or pretty poor. Unfortunately it was a BAD EXPERIENCE for not a cheap restaurant. Food was average at best. Bread and butter was very basic for a upmarket restaurant. One really nice dish which was a fancy hash brown and egg dish with a tasty balsamic slaw. Other 4 dishes were averagely tasting but looked aesthetically pleasing. One being a leek pasta style dish which was served close to being cold. Standards were poor, both of our wine glasses had chips in when you pay 50 quid a bottle I expect better. Even the water glass was served with candle wax on. Both waitresses were really stroppy and unpleasant throughout, one worse than the other. No ask of how was the food & slammed the bill down before we had quite finished our wine & we hadn’t asked for.