Bistro 1

Very friendly, nice menu.
We chose the fish & chips menu with beer for 9.9£ and it was great.
Good fish, fresh, for me personally some more fries would have been better but for the normal person it was a decent meal for not to much ££.

£14.90 for a two course meal?! In Central London?! Near Covent Garden?! And the food is pretty good!!! THIS MUST BE A TRAP.
Alas it isn’t and it really is not bad. My other half and I were treated here by his aunt and uncle before attending the opera (I know we’re so posh). Considering the location and the fact that it’s in the heart of London, I was worried about the price. I expected something around £20 per person just for a main course. I was informed that his aunt and uncle actually frequent this place fairly often which became very obvious when we entered and they were greeted with a «Hello again!»
This place is not easily noticeable, like many of the restaurants in London you might happen upon it by chance or have someone who knew this place take you here. It’s a narrow building with two floors, easily missed from the outside. The interior is dimly lit, with a reddish glow from the colored glass of Morrocan lamps.
I ordered the Bistro Mixed Meze to start and the Chicken Kebab for the main and the food came out in a timely fashion. The Bistro Mixed Meze is an assortment of their starters with hummus, falafel, cheese borek and definitely a starter that I would recommend to those who can’t decide on one. The chargrilled chicken shish kebab main came out on a plate much bigger than I had anticipated; a large helping of the chicken with a heap of white pilau rice. The chicken was tender and moist (ugh that word) and the rice was butterrryyyyy (extra letters because butter is the BEST). Though the food was not mind-​blowing it was very good especially for its price.
As far as the service is concerned, I imagine that I came on a good night as it was a relatively early (about 6:00 pm) dinner. The restaurant is small but once more people arrived it became very loud and difficult to hold a conversation over the din. The waitress wasn’t very attentive and we had to flag her down a few times but that tends to happen in any busy restaurant.
Overall, the place was a good find. A very VERY good price in the heart of London with fairly good food.

As others mentioned, the thing that gets people in the door here is the eye-​poppingly-​low prices. Theater district 3-​course menu for under £15, do they just re-​plate other restaurant’s leftovers? Happily, no that isn’t the case and they do make their own food. If you’ve got a group with a lot of different palettes to please, this is a good bet. Quite the variety on their menu, going from pub food like fish and chips, to Middle Eastern with falafel and hummus, to American with pork chops and steak.
It’s got a slight identity problem on the menu, but the décor is nice with colored lamps and the music was a fun nod to the theater with a lot of old-​school classics like Sinatra and Louis Armstrong.
The food was nothing memorably good or bad, but if you’re looking to comfort your wallet after dropping some cash on top-​notch theater tickets you could do a lot worse!

I hate having to write a bad review… especially for a place that has its charms. The staff are friendly, the lights are cool. The starters are generally good! I had the prawn cocktail and it was tasty. They also provide free bread and olives and the bread is lovely! The fish cakes for the main were delicious but the chips were cold. Not Luke warm. But cold. And that is not OK… And yes this place is cheap but thats not good enough. And worst of all. The ketchup was in a Heinz bottle but was no way Heinz and I just think that’s unforgivable. Really is a shame.

Yum! Me and my friends really enjoyed our dinner here. It was 6 of us and we were seated upstairs.
I really really enjoyed the vegetable moussaka. It had layers of aubergine, courgette, béchamel cheese (and some other things I don’t really remember). It was a pretty small piece though and for 10 pounds, I expected something a little heftier. However, it was delicious, flavorful, with great contrasting textures. It also came with rice and salad and you get a small basket of bread at dinner.
Don’t get the mango and cantaloupe salad! It’s super tiny (slivers of fruit) and definitely not worth the 2 pounds. My friends got the chicken pasta (hugeeee) and another got the salmon, which looked really amazing over a bed of sautéed greens.
All the mains are 10 pounds at dinner, and it’s 12 pounds with an appetizer and entrée.
I definitely recommend this place, however our waitress seemed a little irritable. It might’ve been all the questions we asked.
The atmosphere is pretty datey so definitely come here with a significant other!

Let’s begin with the ambience. Mellow, exquisite music… Dave Brubeck’s Take Five, Louis Armstrong’s When You’re Smiling, Norah Jones… Outside the window I’m people watching with a surprising number of bicyclists cycling up the incline. The clippity clop of the policewoman riding by…
The wait staff are attentive but relaxed and friendly. The Pinot Grigio portions of wine 250 ml. The food quite fresh and delicious at reasonable, very reasonable prices. But best of all, my wife’s mood went from 2 on a scale of 1 to 10 up to a ten. Lucky me!

Great atmosphere… loved the Turkish lanterns and the full size caricature posters on the walls. We were with our kids in Covent garden looking for a place that would cover all our tastes without being generic. Bistro 1 was the right choice. Great food. loved the Turkish sausage as well as the kebabs and the Caesar salad. My daughter loved her banana dessert. The service was warm and friendly… thank you for a memorable evening Cory!

Not sure what all the budget reviews are saying. We were charged 9.90 each for 1 course. The lamb kebab was overdone, chewy and filled with fat. The chicken kebab lacked flavor. The prices are left off of the menu. Not sure, but I think I fell for the bait n’ switch here.

The hubster and I really enjoyed this romantic little stop. The lighting from the Moroccan lamps was just lovely. And we really liked the three course prix fixe menu.
The food was delicious and the service a little spotty as our waitress didn’t really speak English but we managed.
It was just cozy and it seemed like a lot of Londoners frequented the joint; in fact, there was a huge party in the back room the night we went.
Super cheap, super cute, super choice by moi.

Brilliant 4 star establishment.
Thanks to Unilocal,I’ve known this places reputation for a while. I walk past it’s sister restaurant regularly and when someone said they knew this ‘great little place around the corner’ and presented me with Bistro 1 just off the Strand I was happy to give it a whirl.
I’m not sure what I can add to the previous reviews. It’s refreshing to have a restaurant with transparent prices that don’t make me squirm as soon as I see the Menu.
Similarly it made a pleasant change to be welcomed to the table with complimentary bread and olives while we perused the menu.
There’s a really good choice here, especially if you’re a fishy person. I also like the flexibility of being able to have a starter as a main course — which usually means you can double your meat-​less options.
I opted for the Calamari and it was de-​lish. Lovely side salad, chips and the most amazing garlic sauce which stayed with me through until my morning tooth brushing. It’s a great thing the Mrs also loves garlic.
The restaurant is small, quirky and cosy. The staff are Über efficient and also friendly.
I’ll defiantly be back as I can’t think of such a reasonably priced, fresh alternative in the area.

Bistro 1 is a great budget-​minded choice in the area. It reminds me of Little Bay, except that nearly everything on the menu is Mediterranean at Bistro 1. What you get is this.
*A choice of two or three courses
*Medium sized portions from a huge list of menu options – not huge, but you’ll leave satisfied.
*Decent quality food, but nothing stellar. You think you could probably make it at home, but it’s nice to have it plated up and served in a comfortable restaurant and then not to have a million leftover ingredients to use up.
Bottom line:
In the trinity of value for money, variety of dishes, and quality of the food, Bistro 1 sacrifices a little bit of quality in return for a ton of options at a great price.

It’s cheap but you get exactly what you pay for. Mediocre Mediterranean food, albeit with a lot of choices, for a tenner. The house wine is atrocious. We had some forgettable moussaka and lamb kebobs.
It’s a good safe option for your average roaming tourist (i.e. us), but we would have paid a couple pounds more for something that didn’t feel like upmarket cafeteria food. It was good enough, but felt like a waste of a valuable meal.

My mum was in town recently and we had a meal here before I took her to see War Horse (play was terrible, staging and puppets were amazing, but that’s not important right now). It’s still ridiculously cheap for the West End and the food’s still surprisingly decent for the money.

Bistro 1 provides shockingly well-​priced and surprisingly half-​decent Greek/​Mediterranean food. And at under 9 quid for a 2 course dinner and less than a tenner for 3 courses, you’d be hard pressed to find better value elsewhere in central London. Bistro 1 also offers a large and very reasonably priced wine list as well.
As for the food, well it’s clear that Bistro 1 targets the budget minded connoisseur rather than foodies. That said, my starter of hummus and falafel was rather tasty — good thing they provide you with lots of free bread for dipping! My main, the chargrilled lamb fillet, was a bit too chewy for my liking. However, when your dinner costs less than what you would pay to get a cocktail at any of the nearby hotel bars, you really can’t complain.

Tough to beat the price in Central London. As others have said, they do give you bread and olives to start for no extra cost. They do pack you in, so if you get anxious in tight spaces, this isn’t the restaurant for you.
Had the meze starter and the lamb chargrill main. Both were decent. My girlfriend has the vegetable moussaka and it was alright as well.

First of all, one doesn’t really travel to London for the food. So whenever I find something that I absolutely love there, it’s noteworthy. This place is it.
The food was phenomenal, especially for the price: 3 courses for £10. For a starter, I had the fried brie. It was a large serving and only lightly breaded, which I prefer. It came with a berry glaze, which I was hesitant about, but turned out great. The pasta I had for my main dish was pretty good, but nothing special. I would say that’s probably my fault, as I ordered one of the plainest entrees on the menu. But the dessert made up for that. The stuffed apricots with ice cream were definitely a surprise – they were stuffed with heavy whipped cream and drizzled with some more of that incredible berry sauce. The portion sizes might be considered «small», but when you are getting three courses most people will still be satisfied.
The service: this was the only negative, and in my mind it is not as important as the food. The people who worked here weren’t rude, but they definitely were not friendly either. They came to check on us only sparingly (we had to wait a while to get our check) and I don’t believe I saw any of them smile while I was there. However, I can deal with mediocre service if the food is excellent.
Sadly, we went here our last night in London, and I wish we had found it our first night – we would have definitely visited multiple times. This is a great location for a pre-​theatre dinner, as it is in the Covent Garden area and very close to many of the theatres.

Yum, yum, yum! After a long day of sightseeing and in search of something familiar, we ended up at Bistro 1 and were pleasantly surprised by a great dinner!
The menu is fixed price for two or three courses. The meal starts with a basket of fresh bread and a dish of olives. We each got a starter and an entrée. The sliced turkish sausage was served on lettuce and was a good size to get the meal started. The fried potato and bacon salad was also very tasty — the two main ingredients served cubed on a bed of lettuce with a light dressing. For dinner, we had chicken kabobs with rice and boeuf bourguignon over mashed potatoes.
The main floor is rather small — maybe eight tables — but there is additional seating just a few stairs away. The service was friendly and not over attending. A surprise find at the end of a tiring day — just the kind of thing you remember and talk about after getting home!

The spiels of moral vegetarianism have cursed us meat-​eaters for the good part of our urban existences and student years. We have collectively been swamped by the contrasting moral values of cheap crap versus expensive escapes to the shores of continental culture where food isn’t just for absorbing the alcohol to come shortly thereafter.
In the midst of the universal tourist-​ensnaring pestilential shrine to overpriced crap that is Covent Garden, Bistro 1 keeps the country’s highest cultural establishments good company and comforts their less aristocratic attendees in their direst hour of need.
When they need a good eat at a joint with character without leaving their fleece as a trophy for the restaurant owner, they should flock to Bistro 1.
The vegetarian in their party will be delighted by their veggie options, their inner European will be tickled, their conversation will actually revolve around the food without needing stereotypes or platitudes and the meat-​eater like me will enjoy one of the best send-​offs one can give the animal that just died to make the delicious dinner in front of me.
If the journey from the farm to my mouth is a flight, Bistro 1’s creations are a first class ticket with Emirates airways, complete with courteous and efficient flight attendants who ensure my dinner a safe stopover on a bed of delicious side garnish before landing bang on time at Deliciousland international.

I don’t give many 5 stars but this place definitely deserved it. When you go in you get bread and olives complimentary. a lot of places I’ve been in London you don’t get shit so I was pretty surprised.
After looking at the menu I was stunned at the fact I could get a three course meal for 7.90 — thats a deal seriously. I started off with the hummus and falafel which was pretty good considering I’d never had hummus before. My main course was the grilled chicken breast and fries w/​a salad which was also a good portion and cooked to perfection.
Finished off with a slice of strawberry cheesecake… Which was also great. Considering some of the other places I’ve been in London and spent so much more money… this place is definitely the best.
Affordable and filling — a true gem.

If you are working in the Covent Garden area and want a hearty lunch served quickly in style, Bistro 1 is the place. A three course meal for £7.90 in central London is pretty much unbeatable. The menu isn’t to shabby either, with a prominent Mediterranean vibe monopolising.
I had deep fried calamari, that tasted fresh and was garnished well with salad and sauce. Next came my beef bourguignon, slapped over a plate of mashed potato. Finally my banofee pie was light and tasty.
Bistro 1 is the best budget eatery I have been to in a long time. I would never come here to impress, but if you need good food in a relative hurry but still want service, this place is perfect.