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The Living Room

Restaurant & Bar in Islington
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No longer at this address

Our records show that The Living Room is closed.

Address
Suncourt House
18-26 Essex Road
Islington
London
N1 8LN
Map
Current
Cuisine
Restaurant & Bar
Other Branches
Living Room
Region
Islington
Nearest Station
Essex Road
0.34 miles

The brainchild of Tim Bacon, an actor who at the time was 'resting' between work, The Living Room is a chain of modern bars with live music that are staffed by 'resting' actors. Serving a variety of beers, wines, spirits and cocktails as well as a variety of dishes (complete with kids menu), this chain proves popular with all who frequent it. This branch has live music. They also have a baby grand piano and play Jazz and Blues music. Food is served all day and they have a special brunch menu on Sundays. Catering for private parties is available upon request. Please phone for details.

All In London Review

Yet another average, lacklustre chain

Dawdling through Islington on our way to a show we walked through Camden Passage and back onto Upper Street looking for a restaurant that would accommodate my hangover, my friends’ vegan diet, and my other friends’ desperate starvation. The Living Room looked pleasant enough, with simple yet tasty sounding dishes which would be fine as a quick bite before dashing off.

First we ordered drinks, a gin martini for me (hair of the dog) and water for the others. My first bone of contention was that the waitress didn’t ask me whether I wanted it with an olive or with a twist, and I didn’t get a chance to say. However she seemed nice, and very young, and lacking an olive wasn’t the end of the world.

Next we ordered the food. We stifled our giggles as the waitress seemed to be writing down our orders word for word, along with every single ingredient. We explained we were merely ordering a few starters to share, but she asked us whether we wanted them to all arrive at the same time. However as I said before she was very nice, and I feel remorseful at saying anything negative about her.

It then took around 20 minutes for the food to arrive, at which point we began to worry we’d be late for our show. How difficult could it be to defrost some fish cakes? For as soon as we tasted the Thai fish cakes (£5.75) we realised they could only have come from a packet. The soup of the day (£3.95) was broccoli and very tasty, the houmous with pitta bread (£3.95) and edamame beans (wok fried soya beans with ginger and soy sauce, £3.50) were adequate, but the antipasto was disappointing. A smidgeon of mozzarella, one sundried tomato, some olives, rocket leaf and 2 slices of Parma ham for £4.95 is just cheeky.

Nothing tasted bad, but for the price we paid we could have eaten much better and far quicker. Incidentally upon writing this review I discovered the Living Room is part of a chain with branches all over the UK, which explains a lot about the food.

In the end we decided to get up to pay fearing another long wait, and the waitress struggled with the card reader. She was very nice though.

Reviewed by Leila
Published on Jul 7, 2009

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