Spice Market

I enjoyed my dinner at Barley & Buns, they have tried to do something refreshingly different with some modern twist on the buns instead of just directly copying what is already successful. Also the setting is a lot more relax and stylish than most Asian restaurants and the service was at a great hotel standard. My small criticism perhaps would be the buns could be a little smaller as you can be totally stuffed after two buns without the chance to try out other dishes.

Went on a Saturday night. Had a a couple of small cocktails; pretty expensive (2 for £23 including service charge) — tho they were well made. Followed that up with dinner.
Positives: good portion sizes and some interesting ideas on the menu.
Negative: terrible slow service. Waited 15 mins to get our order taken. Restaurant was only ¾ full — so hardly an excuse. Food was average.
In terms of crowds, seemed to be primarily people visiting London.

Came here for the Barley & Buns popup with a 50% off deal through another website.
Considering we arrived at 12pm sharp (when they opened) the staff was still having a staff meeting on the sofas, the service was pretty slow.
The waitress who took our orders was not familiar with the new menu at all, she did not know what the bao of the week was, nor its price.
This menu is available until December 2015 I believe. If you do come here I would recommend eating the roast duck bao, pork belly bao (if you don’t mind the fattiness), and the soft shelled crab (although the portion is quite small).
2 baos per person will fill you up, or 2 ½ if you want to be really full. Unfortunately, the baos seem to be bought cold and heated up in the microwave as the buns get cold really fast. This is in contrast to the buns that gets sold at Flesh & Buns.
I did not like the shrimp bun at all. The short rib was ok but a bit salty.
Overall I wasn’t really impressed with this place for lunch. It was empty, service was slow, and the buns took at least 15 minutes to come out and considering that we were there when it opened, it wasn’t a very nice experience as we felt rushed during the lunch hour to go back to work.
However, it’s worth it to come here to taste the roast duck bao. The meat was done to perfection. Think pulled pork but replace it with roast duck.

Went here for the Barley & Buns popup.
The lounge/​bar is typical W, very stylish and cool. Great environment to impress or have a drink in nice surroundings.
The food was surprising good for vegetarian. Only one bao option, but it was very tasty (although i added lots of sauce) and surprisingly large. The best surprise were the sides — the thai slaw and the asian potatoes were well seasoned and did not last long at all.

I never write reviews but this is so damn awful I need to. Food rushed, none of it cooked properly. Just gross.

This is one of my absolute favourite restaurants in London. Located at Leicester Square right on top of the M&M store.
The service is friendly, professional and yet personal. The atmosphere is luxurious,
cool and stylish with funky music playing in the background.
The food is outstanding. It’s very delicious. To recommend: the mushroom & egg spring rolls.
Their Pad Thai is out of this world.
Overall definitely a place to go.

My wife and I had a glorious meal at The Spice Market i New York last month and were happily surprised to find its sister restaurant in the W Hotel at Leicester Square. The chef’s tasting menu was shorter than the one we had eaten in NY so we chose separate dishes. For starters my wife had the salmon tatare — a wonderful creation — and I chose crispy prawns with a spicy sauce, also indescribably delicious! Our main courses were a. sea bream fillet on aubergine and celeriac in a green curry sauce with coconut rice and b. Charred chicken with ginger rice, which was quite spicy. We drank glasses of a lovely pinot grigio. We shared a lime cheescake with roasted pineapple and mango sorbet to round off another memorable meal. The service wasvimpeccable with our waiter giving helpful suggestions. We will definitely be coming back!

Reports from my brother and a few friends who had visited Spice Market before told me this wasn’t going to be a cheap experience, however we were handed a lunch /​pre-​theatre Bento Box Express menu, with four options between £15 and £20. Prices on the a la carte aren’t too extortionate either, with starters from £6.50 — £12 and mains averaging out to about £17. I do however take great issue to paying £6 for a bottle of beer, which doesn’t even come with a glass. We all know restaurants make great money on drinks but when it’s done this blatantly, I can’t help but feel a rage coming on and the wine list isn’t any better, with nothing under £30.
The bento was as big as I could have hoped for the money (not very) but with the sushi on the side it was plenty for a lunch. My cod was well cooked but the chilli sauce hidden underneath seemed to lack any heat. The samosa was tasty with it’s fresh cilantro (coriander) yoghurt and the papaya salad was good despite it’s messy presentation, with a tasty dressing running through it.

The spicy baby back ribs were perfect. Hot tea and several sushi choices rounded out the late afternoon meal. They do not serve food until 5 pm but the wait was worth it. Definitely an all around excellent meal and atmosphere.

Every time we go to Spice Market we feel VERY welcome! The service is great! Always seated before our reservation and the menu is great! Be sure to order your drinks as pitchers! LOL! Better deal with more then 1! The Ginger Margarita is the best! Also if you order the pitcher you get a free appetizer !!! The Spice Market plate ! and its awesome! We always order to share here! Try the Baby back ribs, Pork Belly Bun and rib eye! The Chef deserves a drink on us! Located in the W hotel in London! Lets just say, if you are on a tight budget, don’t go here, if your are ready to indulge, DO IT! !! Its pretty spendy!

We stayed at the W hotel that this place is attached to. We had our first breakfast here the morning after we landed and passed out.
After circling their so called breakfast buffet we opted to just order from the menu because nothing looked too appetizing, lots of cereal, bread, black pudding (tried it twice from other places, enough is enough). The service was great here and our server explained their menu in great details as some items were a bit different to us.
I make it a point to get Eggs Benedict if I see it on the menu. Theirs were okay, the Hollandaise sauce was WAY too tangy (too much lemon juice?) The biscuit was too thick so it was very too chewy. What they have was a perfect & beautiful presentation of the dish. It came with some slightly grilled cherry tomatoes on the vine and an odd fried potato string patty thing that looked better than it taste. Resembles hash browns, but stringy like Mini Wheats.
One thing I do have to point out is that the British knows how to make great scrambled eggs. American restaurants often cook them until they are dry/​overcooked. To properly scramble eggs, you must keep stirring it and not keep it over constant heat. This makes a very creamy, but fully cooked scrambled egg.

Spice Market has an excellent décor and exciting vibe to it. The location is as central as you can get and it’s great looking out the window and seeing all the people passing and lights from Chinatown. Sharing is all part of the experience at Spice Market and we had a good time trying out the variety of food from sushi to pad thai noodles. It was all very good and cooked very well. Service was nice and friendly. It may not be the most original or exciting food that you can get for the price, but its all done very well and worth the visit.

Nice diner.

We stumbled upon this restaurant while looking for a pre-​theatre small bite and drink before and totally enjoyed their espresso martinis with Patron Café.
So this time, we looked for it again and had more time to eat. We had the sushi and sashimi plate which was a hefty serving. But the one I really liked was the spiced tomato dip with chips and the peanut sauce of the grilled chicken satay.
Curious to try their other dishes!

service was good; food choices were very limited for vegetarians; taste was meh. With all of the options around Piccadilly Circus, I won’t dine here again. Since I was staying at the hotel, this was a convenient venue but there are several better options around for much less.

The pan-​Asian food is tasty and the menu is extensive, but I feel that its trying to be innovative but constrained by the fact that it is a hotel restaurant and thus still has to stay pretty safe for hotel guests.
You can’t beat the location — right in the middle of Leicester Square, but the moment you step in its like entering another world, away from the stressful hustle and bustle of Wardour and Gerrard Street.
I would definitely try the spring rolls from the starters, and also the cod from the mains. The duck curry isn’t bad either, and the coconut rice in banana leaf is a nice touch!
Prices are hotel standard and portions are not the biggest, but its decent value. Especially if you bring your SPG loyalty card, which gets you 10% discount off food.

A glitzy and hip place with lots of potential. Part of the new W Hotel, it comes in really nice Asian-​style modern design, with a nice service concept. But the food… well…not quite. To be fair, the starter was excellent. I had the mixed plate, and everything was really tasty, doing service to the name «Spice Market». But the main course — Duck Curry — was absolutely tasteless! How can an oriental restaurant produce such a bad curry? I was shocked, especially when looking at the price tag it comes with.
Breakfast in Spice Market is small but good. As an SPG platinum member, it came for free with my stay at the W, which I found very nice.

As we were waiting for our room at the W, we stopped by Spice Market to grab a quick bite to eat. My cousins raved about this place in New York, but I’m not honestly not too impressed. Food was mediocre for the price we paid but our mixed drinks were super yummy!
Spiced Chicken Samosas were shaped like the normal triangles as they would usually be served but instead of a familiar curry, potato filling, it was stuffed with lots of dry chicken. The Coriander Yogurt sauce that it was paired with was much needed to contrast the dryness. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of meat, just not juicy, tender meat. Then again, I was never a fan of chicken as it tends to almost never be prepared well at most of the places that I’ve tried.
Cod with Malaysian Chili Sauce, Thai Basil, and celery was decent. A little on the fence about the sauce but the cod itself was pleasantly not dry. Thank goodness!
Shrimp Pad Thai was a bit more Chinese infused than my usual expectation and tasted less sweet/​sour than normal. Rather… it was a bit salty and tasted like they used soy sauce as the primary base to their sauce/​flavor.
Surprisingly, the Chili lemongrass baby corn and broccoli was the dish I liked most about this meal aside from the drinks. Very small portions but simple and tasty nonetheless.
Overall disappointed with my first meal in London ever. :c I’d definitely come back for the drinks but not so much the food. Service was very good though.

#Breakfast review:
Okay — their granola is SO good that I NEED to write an update review just on the granola.
I haven’t had their granola for a while, I know it’s awesome since I’ve had it before. But man, it is seriously THE BEST granola ever. Maybe you’ll come after this review and think to yourself, the best? prob not, it’s just good, but I wouldn’t say it’s THE BEST. Well… that might be because I hyped it up so much for you before you even tried it!
Regardless, I know this is the best granola ever. I want to come back to London and the W Hotel just to eat this granola all over again. Can I buy some of this? Where can I buy it? I want to take it back to the states with me!

Went for breakfast —
The «buffet» contains like zero hot items. The salmon poached eggs on brioche was pretty terrible, and 14 pounds too. I had a better breakfast at the Club Lounge in the Sheraton Lisbon.
I guess it’s karma for me being too lazy to go beyond the walls of my hotel for food.