Review: Nude Espresso Brick Lane

I love dinning and I am always in search of a fine dinning experience. I plan to share my dinning experiences in London here starting with Nude Espresso where I had brunch this afternoon with some of my classmates. So here it goes:

Nude Espresso
26 Hanbury Street
London
E1 6QR
http://www.nudeespresso.com/

I had high expectations. I was told Nude makes the best coffee in London. Before going to there I explored the website and searched the menu for a delicious brunch. It looked great.

There was a line up inside the restaurant when we entered. That's always a good sign. We were told to wait for "a while" for a table. However, we soon after were seated once my friend who frequents the place walked in. We sat down on two tables attached to each other. Comfortable seats and nice ambiance.

Soon after we got water and menus and ordered our food and drinks. Everyone went with Eggs Benedict with Salmon and Spinach. I had heard they make very good Flat White and having never tried it decided to go with Flat White with semi-skim milk (note: in London, low fat = 2% and most of the time you can't find skim milk, they basically consider semi-skim with 1-2% fat = skim milk).

Flat White

Eggs Benedict with Salmon

Note on Eggs Benedict: this wasn't a typical eggs benedict with english muffin, etc. It was basically poached eggs + Hollandaise Sauce on top of salmon flakes and on top of a piece of toasted wholewheat bread.

I ordered Eggs Benedict minus the Hollandaise Sauce (I avoid butter), Salmon and Spinach.

Eggs Benedict + Salmon without Hollandaise Sauce

The restaurant was busy so we patiently waited for our food. First the hot drinks arrived. I liked the Flat White. It's more like a strong latte. My friends also enjoyed their drinks.

It took a while for the food to arrive. A while. We were almost done with the drinks when the food arrived. I am usually very patient especially when the restaurant is busy, but I really think drinks and food should be served short after each other, so the customers can enjoy them together.

So the food arrived minus the spinach. It took a while until the spinach arrived. We reminded the servers about the spinach a few times. One of my friends did not even get her spinach. She had also ordered orange juice and did not get that one either. After our meal, when we informed the server about this issue he gave her a glass of orange juice on the house. A nice gesture!

Spinach

So how was the food? Keep in mind that this meal did not require much cooking. You basically need to assemble your already prepared salmon on already prepared bread and cook the eggs, sauce and spinach. So you better nail the eggs, sauce and spinach. The eggs were disappointingly overcooked. I am no expert in making poached eggs, but I am not a restaurant chef. The taste was fine but that wasn't properly poached eggs. The salmon was fine. The bread was fine and the spinach was just meh. I did not try the sauce so can't judge that. Overall, not impressed with the food.

Now let's talk about the service. Staff weren't particularly nice or rude. They were just humans carrying food and taking orders. That's all. One server who checked on us knew one of my friends and mostly interacted with her. Given how some of the items we ordered did not arrive and there was minimal interaction with the staff, I'd rate the service low.

Also, salt came in a small bowl not in a shaker. You had to put your fingers in there and sprinkle it on your food. How sanitary is that? We asked for pepper and ground it on our food. I don't mind this at all but in Canada, servers always offer the pepper and grind it themselves. I enjoy that. Perhaps that's not a British tradition so let's forget about this.

So do I recommend the place? Overall, no. The drinks seem nice so I may consider going by and pick up a drink to go. That said, they don't have skim milk so I'll most likely avoid the place all together.

A disappointing experience.