Hard Rock Cafe, London Review
Hard Rock Cafe
London
Review by Christine Charlesworth
The sun was shining on a perfect June day in London as we strolled through Green Park and crossed the road to visit the Hard Rock Cafe, situated on the corner of Old Park Lane. This is a very popular place to visit and there was already a sizeable queue lining the street beside the outside covered seating area.
Once inside we were greeted by smiling, helpful staff who took us to the raised bar area where we sat at high stools and waited for our table. Calum, from Ireland, was behind the bar and served us with a cooling beer and a white wine and soda spritzer, which gave us time to admire the amazing decor of the interior, enjoy the music and watch the TV screens that show footage of each pop star as their music was played. There was a large glass chandelier over the main dining area and the walls were lined with drum kits, signed guitars and other pop memorabilia. We sat just below Eric Clapton’s Lead II Fender, which he gave to the Hard Rock Cafe in order to save his seat each time he visited. This was the start of the vast pop collection.
We were pleased to note that there were a high number of very attentive staff, the clientele were of all generations and nationalities and everyone looked happy. While we sipped our drinks a group of school children filed out from the downstairs restaurant, which is a larger area, having American style booths, set up to cater for sizeable parties.
Suddenly we were all hushed to silence and instructed to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to a bewildered 2 year old girl and then later, during our meal, we were hushed again to sing the same for a 32 year old man. This is obviously one of the places to come for birthday celebrations and everyone joined in with good spirit.
Collected from the bar we were shown to our table by the window where we were introduced to our server, Horia Nicholai (known as Nicky) who is working on an exchange for a few months from the Hard Rock Cafe in Bucharest. We were given the menus and Nicky explained all about the food and told us about all the latest items on the menu, which we were there to sample. He said he would like to bring us a special cocktail each to drink while we chose our food. These were enormous. I had a ‘Hurricane’ which Nicky told me was his favourite and my husband had a bright turquoise ‘Big Kablue-Na’. They were both delicious and served in special ‘Hard Rock Cafe’ glasses which can be purchased as souvenirs.
While we waited for our food Anna and Angus, who was on his third day at Hard Rock Cafe, brought round an iPad list of all the songs we could request. Everyone in the restaurant is asked to contribute to this choice and, as before, all the songs have the artists in concert on the screens dotted around the cafe.
Our first dish was COBB SALAD. Grilled chicken, avocado, tomatoes, red onions, egg, smoked bacon and two cheeses arranged on a large plate in stripes of colour on top of the mixed green salad. We tried two dressings, vinaigrette and ranch. This was a fresh tasting salad that we shared. It had a good mix of flavours but we both preferred the ranch dressing.
FRIED SHRIMP PLATTER was a very generous portion of jumbo shrimp. I think actually we would call them large prawns. They were lovely, as was the spicy cocktail sauce.
The TANGO BURGER was layered in a bun with two cheeses, sloppy-joe and tangy barbecue sauce, with a special mayonnaise. This was very good and had a lovely barbecue flavour.
We also had a FIESTA BURGER in toasted brioche with jalapeno salsa, jack cheese, fresh guacamole and all the trimmings, including a huge slice of vine-ripened tomato. An excellent combination.
Lastly came the SMOKED BEEF BRISKET with hickory barbecue sauce on sourdough bread. This was good, although the sauce seemed a little too sweet.
Every dish came with chunky, deep fried chips.
For dessert Nicky chose for us the CHEESCAKE MADE WITH OREO COOKIE PIECES drizzled with chocolate sauce. This was made in-house and it was such a shame that, because of all the other food we had sampled, we could only manage to eat half of the huge slice of delicious cake.
No visit to the Hard Rock Cafe is complete without a trip down into the vaults to see the extra special pieces of pop memorabilia. The vaults are housed on the opposite corner of Old Park Lane in the original bank vaults left in the building when Coutts Bank moved premises. We enjoyed a very comprehensive tour and were very impressed that the young lady who showed us round was also able to converse in Italian to a family group who had joined us and also in Bulgarian to another couple, although the tour was given in English. At one point the young Italian boy from the family group sat on a sofa and serenaded us with a guitar from the collection. Above the vaults is a gift shop where Hard Rock souvenirs can be purchased, from babies bibs and clothing to a huge selection of T-shirts, sweat shirts and varieties of Hard Rock Cafe glasses.
Hard Rock Cafe in London was opened in 1971 and, although they are now worldwide, this is the very best and the most authentic. It is a ‘must visit’ place for anyone coming to London who wants to eat some really good American style food and feast their eyes on all the wonderful gear from the rock and pop world. A really great experience.
Rating: 5/5 
For more information and to view menus visit www.hardrock.com/cafes/london.
Hard Rock Cafe London, 150 Old Park Lane, London, W1K 1QZ | 0207 514 1700
