four O nine

When your paying quite a bit of money, you expect the food to be great and the service to be attentive. Unfortunately, neither lived up to their expectations. Overall it was a disappointing experience.

Great food, nice atmosphere and friendly staff. What more could you want? I’ve been twice here now and both times the food was excellent, these people really know how to cook a good steak. My girlfriend had an ice cream last time and said it was delicious, a geloto. Definitely recommend visiting at least once as I am sure you’ll like it and keep coming for more.

There are a lot of restaurants in Clapham, but this is hands down the best in the area. Service is always good and the staff are really polite and welcoming. Food is just as good and for some people it may seem a bit pricey, but for London the prices are pretty reasonable. You should definitely try their fresh potatoes with spring onions, it is a great side dish to go with your drink.

I absolutely love this place, there is not enough words to describe how delicious is the food. The service is also great, just try it!

Definitely the best place to dine with a large array of wine and splendid menu. The staff here are very polite and efficient. Enjoyed the evening thoroughly.

Really
good place to have dinner. The food is gourme and the dishes are
prepared with great attention to the details. The menu is not large
but everything is a must to try. A little pricey but perfect for some
occasions.

My boyfriend and I went here for lunch on a Sunday for the 3 course, set menu deal which is £25 per head.
The restaurant has an air of mystery as from the outside there’s just a menu board and a buzzer. You go upstairs to the first floor and are then greeted with lovely décor and friendly staff. We had a table by the window (but beware, the view isn’t much to look at).
For starters I had the potato and chard soup and my boyfriend had the limoncello cured trout. He won that round as the trout really was delicious, served with a really tasty sauce and beautifully presented. My sauce was yummy too, but there was a bit too much and it was very creamy.
For our mains I had the lamb while my boyfriend opted for the sirloin of beef. The beef is definitely the one to go for if you are hungry as it comes with all the trimmings and some hefty potatoes. My lamb was done perfectly, a little rare in the middle but crispy and sweet on the outside.
Finally for dessert we shared the chocolate brownie and the torta di formaggio which were both very nice. Apart from the carrots being a little underdone I couldn’t really fault the food at all. We ended up paying £70 for the two of us, which considering we only had one beer each felt quite a lot for lunch, but the food was lovely and the service was good. A fail-​safe option for when you’ve got a bit of money to spend.

We had a a very poor meal at 409 on 20÷02÷12. The booking was messed up, and badly-​handled when we arrived. Our waitress wasn’t able to answer basic questions about the menu. The room was so underlit as to appear dingy. We sent a rare steak back because it was over-​cooked. However, the big problem was that the meal made two of us sick the next day. We had all the symptoms of food poisoning and this was the only food we shared that day. Furthermore somebody else had been sick in the toilets when we were there on a quiet Monday night, so I guess that we weren’t the only unfortunate diners. I wouldn’t return.
A postscript: I have been contacted by the management of 409, and had the entire cost of the meal reimbursed. They did give the impression of caring, and taking responsibility. So maybe this was an isolated incident, and, MAYBE, I’ll give it another try in the future.

A hidden gem! Have only been here the once, decided to treat me wife to a night out we decided to try something new. Upon arriving you must press the door bell where someone on the other end will buzz you in. The stairs leads to a balcony which they use on saturdays for barbecues and the door the the restaurant. The staff are very welcoming and offer to take your jackets then lead you to your table. Now to the food. AMAZING! I had duck for my mains which was served with salad and the best ever dressing. I recommend this place to any couple and think it is ideal for a first date, especially when trying to make an impression. Their are plenty of bars and nightlife around if you decide to have a late one.

This is a great little restaurant right next to Clapham North station. I adore the little amuse bouche they always serve before the starter. My only gripe with this place would be the price. Even when you book a deal through top table it sill comes to about £45 per head. Having said that, the food is always excellent and the service is impeccable. The atmosphere is always pretty relaxed. I’d recommend this place for a special occasion.

Really nice place for a special occasion. The staff were attentive without being over bearing. Will be back next time I decide to treat myself!

I had a dinner for two here and liked this restaurant alot.
Service:
The service was attentive and discreet — they even gave me a quiet corner as requested.
Ambience:
This restaurant had an old-​school nautical /​country theme and the ambience made me feel I was in an old-​school attic — very cool.
Food:
If you’re after something that challenges your tastebuds this restaurant is for you. This was exactly the kind of thing I wanted. For example, the dessert a Strawberry Mille Fuille with basil chantilly, black pepper and balsamic vinegar.
Price:
This is a pricey place for its location in Clapham. Whilst it’s a really nice date location, there are other more impressive places you could consider if you were looking to impress at this price point. However, this is a must for the food loving couple!

This is one of my favourite ‘posh’ locals. You can go into the centre of town and find equally as good food for the same price but it’s nicer when you can ‘walk it off’ on the way home.
We’ve been going here for about four years and we keep going back, we go ²⁄₃ times a year.
Service is always great, attentive, friendly, chatty.
Great quality food… we always end up booking a toptable deal and then end up ordering from the a la carte coz it’s all so scrummy.

Don’t you just love discovering a place around where you are on a day-​to-​day basis that makes you regret not finding it sooner?
Four o Nine is one of these places, I’d never heard of it but decided to give a go last Saturday night as they were offering a deal. We had little trouble finding it (yes it’s on top of the Clapham North pub, ignore the address look for the pub) and when we walked in we didn’t really know what to expect. What we got was a warm greeting from the hostess who promptly took our coats and got us seated in the dining room. Room was lit by low lighting and taper candles on every table, really great ambience and truly fit the festive/​winter season.
Our waitress was lovely, how do I know? Usually when you go to a ‘fancy’ place and ask for tap water, you can tell they somehow are disappointed or sizing you up as a ‘cheap’ customer. Our waitress happily took our order of some tap water before we even got down to ordering our drinks (a bottle of wine in the end) and was just very attentive (not overly so), happy and polite, just exactly how you’d wish all wait staff would be!
Now on to the food… I got the cauliflower truffle soup as an appetizer. It was delicious and although I’d call it a veloute more than a soup, there was no disappointment for my tummy. My partner got a chicken liver and fois gras dish with some pineapple mixture kind of like a coulis. And the tastes matched surprisingly wonderfully. For my main course I had the onglet steak which was cooked as asked (yay!) and was delicious, my partner had the pheasant and although he said it wasn’t an item he’d get often (who does want pheasant anyway) it was still cooked well and a unique change.
Really enjoyed the food, the atmosphere and the service so no doubt I’ll be coming back, YAY me!

This really is a hidden gem in the strictest sense. You arrive at what looks like any normal front door, you buzz and a voice asks for your name. You gain entrance and feel as though you are entering a secret society.
Once off the street you remain outside climbing up some black steps which lead you to a small
garden/​terrace with a lovers swinging chair and other wicker garden furniture. Everything is quite dark adding to the whole intreauge.
Once through the restaurant door you follow the light at the end of the corridor guiding you in to the dining room and wow what a buzz. Lowly lit it is at full capacity with full atmosphere the warming sound of happy satisfied people. You know from here you are going to have an experience.
The staff are exemplary, polite, professional and very efficiant.
We are taken to the bar where we have a vodka martini and a Hendricks G &T, the Hendricks was one of the best ever. No doubt.
The menu was very good. We plumped for three starters, octapus, butternut squash soup and sea trout. The octapus was right on the money in a lovely rich dark sauce served with crisp toast and a drizzling of garlic. The soup was very good nicely rounded and perfectly warm but the trout a little disapointing. Served with strips of pickled cucumber it just missed slightly, it wasn’t bad but I think just eclipsed by the other two.
Main course we both went for the rib eye with bone marrow. Again supurb, a wonderful wonderful plate of meat served with a crisp salad and chips (more wedges than chips). I think I would fry the chips in dripping for that little extra flavour but other wise they were fine. If you like your chips a little slimmer I did spot a woman with these.
We wahsed all this down with a nice french red recommended by the waiter which didn’t fail to please, at £50 it was about right.
All in all this is a real must visit. I think you will go back time after time as you do feel you are somewhere special indeed somone special. The staff look after you as if you are starring in the next Hollywood blockbuster. Intimate lighting, hidden location and exceptional staff you do feel a VVIP.

Let’s go straight to the point: one of the best restaurant and service I have ever had in my life, one of them that makes me have fights with my family back home in France when I tell them how fantastic London is regarding food.
One problem: the address: do not on Clapham road, the restaurant is just above the pub Clapham North facing the tube station with obviously the same name. The entry is just a door besides the pub on Landor Road.
Once you push the door this is pure happiness: décor is great and a really good atmosphere, perfect for a date or for a special treatment for your girlfriend. The food was very tasty and the wine just a pure pleasure. The quantity of food was perfect, just what you need, no more, no less.
The service might be the asset of the place: friendly, professional, and anticipating your needs.
This restaurant might be expensive, but it is worthy and it is definitely a must for anyone leaving in Clapham!

It it wasn’t for Qype, I might never have known about this restaurant: and for years, I lived virtually around the corner!
What interests me is that this place has certainly captured the imagination of the Claphamites (or, at least, the qyping section of the Claphamites), as opposed to its competition on the common, Trinity, which hasn’t attracted nearly as many reviews, despite hanging in the same sort of price range, and with similar pretensions to above-​average cooking.
Trinity’s décor feels a little bland and soulless — 409 gets it absolutely right. It’s a gorgeous, welcoming space, even though they cram as many tables in as humanly possible — great planning, from a turnover point of view. It feels intimate, not necessarily over-​crowded, but it got completely ram-​packed the Friday we were there.
I was emailed to confirm my booking, and then called on my mobile to re-​re-​confirm on the day, too. With (I thought) a pretty rude stipulation that we had the table for 2 hours max — pretty rich, I thought, coming from a neighbourhood restaurant (and this in the dog days of February).
I booked an early slot because my guest was just off a long-​haul flight. We arrived just before 7 to a very quiet restaurant — but by 9 the place was heaving, and we had to shout to hear each other. We weren’t hassled to leave.
The staff were all pretty wonderful — friendly, polite, helpful and efficient. I really felt they were concentrating on making the experience good for us, but our waitress didn’t hover unnecessarily either — she actually had quite a large number of tables to look after.
And the food was faultless. Every element was just perfect. My sea-​bass was fabulously fresh and tasty; my guest loved her chicken. We both had a sublime rhubarb compote and blood-​orange sorbet for dessert.
Yep, it’s not cheap, and extras are very efficiently padded onto the basic special-​offer menu (in the end, making up over 60% of the bill — despite we only had one glass of wine each). But I would say this is a real peach of place — can’t wait to go again.

Four o nine is a proper hidden gem — and I mean hidden. I can’t imagine it gets much passing trade, being up a rather grotty staircase through an almost unmarked door, with a doorbell to ring to get let in. Having said that, this is great because otherwise you’d never get a table.
The food is seriously good. It’s seriously priced but not outrageous, you can tell the ingredients are worth every penny. My boyfriend pronounced his chateubriand the best outside France, which is pretty high praise. I had a goats cheese salad which was better than I thought a goats cheese salad (or any salad) could be. Make sure you’re hungry — you’ll want to eat everything but you’ll be hard pushed to as it’s rich and the portions are hearty!
The interior is perfect too — very romantic, if you’re looking for that sort of thing. If you’re not, er, blow out the candles?! There is a bar which serves some of the best cocktails I’ve ever had (and unfortunately this always results in a surprisingly large bill at the end of the evening!!). If you go, have the Old Cuban — a mojito made with champagne. Tastes even better than it sounds.
They now do a 2 course Sunday lunch which I haven’t tried but I imagine would be fantastic. Make up a special occasion and go!

I have been wanting to eat at four o nine ever since I first spied the inconspicuous buzzer and nameplate beside the darkened doorway on my walk home. Tucked above the Clapham North pub, our visit was spurred in part by a ridiculously reasonable (2 courses for £20, 3 for £24) deal on TopTable.
Although our meal choice was limited to a restricted menu (3 choices at each course), there was still something to please everyone in our group of 6. The service was polite and unobtrusive, and just the right amount of time was left between courses to sip wine (from a fairly expansive winelist) and cocktails (which looked fantastic in writing, but tasted rather uninspired).
The restaurant was busy and buzzing for a rainy Wednesday — I’m not sure what it’s normally like, but I suspect that most of the diners there last night had booked through TopTable too. Candles on every table, small windows (though elevated, the view of the Clapham North underground station provides little to look at) and booking limited to smaller groups help to create a lovely intimate atmosphere (subtext: great for dates).
I’d definitely visit again, as I’m itching to go ‘off menu’ and sample dishes from the regular, non restricted menu.

I almost didnt want to write about 409 to try and keep it a hidden secret just like the doorway but that just wouldnt be fair.
My first impressions on trying to find the place were what have we done? — quickly replaced by when can we come back?
409 gets the basics right of good food, good drink & good staff — a combination you dont always find unfortunately!
After finally deciding what we would like to order we than had to make the choice of wines, something made so much easier with the advice of the manager. They asked what charachter we usually liked about our wine and new the list well enough to make either a well informed judgement (or a very luck guess! Haha!) on what to reccommend.
The price at the end was reasonable for 2 of us and when in the area next i will certainly be hunting this place out again.