Raoul’s

I have not eaten at the restaurant but do frequent the deli as there is one chicken dish I order quite regularly. I have no complaints about the food but the staff are so bad I am not sure how this place stays in business. Really bad attitude from the staff, apparently there is no manager, the owner of Raoul’s runs the deli. Awful job as her staff have no idea how to interact with customers. They are surly, rude and inefficient.

Great place to get cold cuts and Machiavelli eggs. It also has deli counter — popular items are chicken escalope and lasagna. Salads are there but much better at baker and spice must a few doors down. I personally like arancini and porcini mushroom lasagna. I also like the fact that it carries gelupo ice cream. Just don’t get any kind of coffee — quite disgusting…

It seems like there is a bit of confusion on here about the different Raoul’s in maida vale. This review is not for the restaurant, but for the deli.
It’s overpriced and just okay.
The to-​go foods? I prefer Baker and Spice.
The meats, olives, and cheese? I’d walk the extra 12 min to Panzer’s.
It’s really the bread, pastries, and coffee I come here for. It’s really delicious. But not so delicious I’d leave my neighborhood to try it… if you’re in the hood, give it a try. But don’t make the trip out here just for raouls.
Unless you like cheesy bread sticks. I would come here for the cheesy bread sticks.

Raoul’s is a nice restaurant. It’s perhaps a bit too expensive for what you get, but the food is fairly okay. I was a bit disappointed by the burger, but the other meal a had there was quite good. I also like the simple interior. On Sundays it always looks very busy during the day.

Much more than a deli… This place is gourmet heaven! Place has fresh, high quality foods: Fresh vegetables, fresh pastas & sauces, Deli has salamis, olives, too many wonderful salads for take away to list, cheeses, and there is a bakery counter on the other side of the shop with sinful baked goods.
Prices are higher than a normal grocery of course, but you go here if you want quality — especially great stop if you’re planning to cook a wonderful, simple italian dinner where a few high quality ingredients go a long way to making a remarkable meal.
Raoul’s gourmet restaurant is located directly across the street from the deli. So if you’d rather not fuss with cooking, you browse the deli to see the amazing products and satisfy your appetite at the restaurant :)

Coffee is wonderful. IF it ever arrives. Last time I agreed to meet friends here, they called to say they were running late, so I ordered a Latte. Nothing complicated, no additional instructions, just «a Latte, please» The waiter turned on his heel, and didn’t even say acknowledge me, nod at me or anything! Ten minutes later, a girl arrived, asked if she could help. I said «well, I ordered a Latte with your colleague, but it hasn’t arrived» she goes off to ask. He growls that of course he remembers, but he has other orders to do. (funny that, i was the first person in the place)
15 minutes pass, friends arrive, order their coffee. Mine STILL hasn’t arrived, so i say cancel the coffee, I’d like Earl grey with my breakfast. (coffee and eggs isn’t a great combo.) Attitude from the waiter. you ordered it, you must pay for it blah blah. I wouldn’t mind if the damn thing was on the table!
So, to breakfast… as usual, the eggs royale /​salmon benedict whatever you want to call them, were lovely. nice hollandaise, slightly soft muffin, but not a problem. Then there’s the small matter of side orders. I fancied some spinach. £4!!! for two spoonfuls of decidedly average steamed spinach. not good.
And my friend asked if she could have an extra poached egg with her scrambles– oh no, no changes to the menu. (she was more than happy to pay, but wasn’t allowed)
I have tried and tried with Raouls Maida Vale, this will be my last visit– there are so many more wonderful places not to need to waste time and money being treated like a fool.
*Hammersmith and Notting Hill have much better service, but still maintain the awkward no changes policy.

I have known Raoul’s Deli — as it has been called for the past ⁷⁄₈ years — for a long time and I have to say, this is such jewel in the area. We feel so lucky to have such a place offering so many things and it keeps offering more… A lovely cheese counter and excellent cooked dishes. A bit pricey if you have to eat there every day, but heck… how many of us can’t be bothered to cook after a long day at work.
The Café (s) — 3 so far and counting — is one of the best in London for brunch and a quick dinner. The food is always fresh and good, no wonder so many celebrities can be seen there. Be prepared to queue at weekends…

REVIEW OF RAOULS RESTAURANT CLIFTON RD If there’s one word that springs to mind to describe my experience of this place, then it has to be ‘anticlimax’. Allow me to explain As you’ve probably gathered by now if youve read any of my other reviews, I’ve grown up in Maida Vale and so these local restaurants/​eateries have been pretty much part of my visual landscape for almost two decades now. When you see something over and over day in day out, it begins to weave itself into the tapestry of your life, more than often, being something that you just take for granted, visually that is. Think of any road you may walk down every day in your life. Have you ever stopped to study each and every door and building and object that lies along the way? Because I can assure you, you will be surprised at what you might find. Things you’ve been walking past for years, that you never knew existed. To give a very diluted example of this, I only recently noticed by accident, that each and every black baluster making up the long line of balustrade that runs the full length of Hyde Park adjacent to Rotten Row separating the row from the cycle path, has written on it, names of deceased people. The names are written in black in the same colour as the balustrade, so unless you actually bend over and take a good look at them, it’s hardly noticeable. And this is not advisable, because you will probably end up with your name on one of them too, having been mowed down by one of the oncoming cyclists. Not the best of examples (I can think of loads more, like the river that runs in the air right through Sloane Sq tube station), but still, it illustrates how we just take things for granted, without ever really truly knowing (or more accurately, bothering ourselves to know) what lurks behind the façade that lines our streets. For me, Raouls café was just this; one of the few jewel-​like corner-​stones that laid the foundations down for the character and soul of the now-​ruined Clifton Rd, in Little Venice; along with Vickis café (now Molly’s!) across the way, the now non-​existent Post office on the corner (the decommissioning of this place was simply a crime), Superfoods, a beautifully quaint, spotless, gleaming 1950’s American styled supermarket (complete with background chiming music) that was gobbled up by Tescos around 2004, Cullens, residing just next door, the perfect antidote to the sterilized feel of commercialized supermarket shopping, and the two newsagents that flanked the supermarkets on either side. Raouls was (and still is) Little Venice’s flagship restaurant. One of it’s remarkable qualities, is that it has this wonderful chameleon-​like ability to change it’s form, function and guise during the course of the day. In the mornings (I believe this is the best time to experience what Raouls has to offer), it’s like one of those New York style breakfast bashers, serving up good quality morning grub (so I’ve gathered). At lunchtime it magically turns into a bistro! De-​deer! Filled with Little Venician mothers nattering away at each other like there’s no tomorrow, using words like ‘parsimonious’; a smattering of MaidaVale glitterati; local business people etc grabbing a bite to eat whilst simultaneously doing business verbally; and the obligatory local St John’s Wood/​Maidavale ‘rich folk’ whiling away their free time (and daddy’s money) whilst casually sipping away at the current fashionable version of a particular style of coffee. Come late afternoon, Raouls suffers a slight bout of multiple-​personality-​disorder, it doesn’t know which way to turn, having a bit of a problem deciding whether or not to remain as restaurant for the remainder of the day, or slip back into it’s cafeteria attire for a couple of hours or so. Food is available all day, but I think afternoons is teatime here, to be honest. Then in the evening, its full-​on restaurant time, right up until last orders which is around 10.30pm to 11pm. I had a meal here once, through no choice of my own. My father was renovating his house round the corner and it was temporarily gutted out. We’d been living off takeaways for weeks, and were bored of the same ones, so we decided to try Raouls out, reluctantly may I add; for the first time in twenty years. I’d been there a couple of times before with my mum, but just for a glass of wine or something like that, not food. We were late, and so scurried down the hill to try and make it in time. As usual, the place was packed out and really bustling. The sonourous blend of clinking and clanking coupled with the mild roar of alcohol induced conversation completely blasted me the second I opened the front door; not to mention the accompanying gust of stares, and the gust of wind that followed it, blowing my Beatles hairbob into a freshly erected Amy Winehouse bouffant, plastering my innocent looking physiognomy backwards by a millimeter or two, like I had just recovered from a facelift whilst simultaneously accelerating from 0−2000mph in

It’s cramped and crowded. Which makes the New York like atmosphere.
The breakfast menu is extensive and reasonably priced.
The portobello mushrooms on toast excellent as is the full English breakfast.
It’s one of the best out of hotel breakfasts in town.
And it’s in a great village atmosphere.
Step over to their Deli /​Patisserie or the organic stores around.

Great food. Expensive but good quality.

I went to Raouls with high hopes and was very impressed with the décor inside and the menu is great for breakfast containing kippers, smoked haddock, eggs benedict etc Having ordered drinks and food (great smoothie range) I waited as the staff buzzed around me. Sure enough my cutlery was delivered but no drinks or food. Eventually after about 15 minutes I approached the waiter who had taken my order and guess what, the order had been lost. Reading through other reviews on qype this seems to be a habit of theirs! In the end the food was very good and they knocked the drinks off the bill but I won’t hurry back.

I eat lunch at Raouls every Thursday and without fail it lives up to a hight standard. The coffee is good and strong, the steaks are aged and well cooked, the salads are perfect in summer. Oh and the selection of cakes isn’t bad either.

If image, posing, looking good, cool décor, good looking people, flashy but decent food, that is definitely not cheap but also not too overpriced then this is the place for you.
It is a place that is hot on looks, trendyness and in a way a place to be seen at, that is loved by people who want that kind of thing.
If that is your thing then this is probably the place to be in Little Venice and lots of people love it.
If you are into the understated taste thing which is also on the value end of the spectrum then there are other places

I like to eat breakfast at this cosy café on a saturday morning (sat as it’s busier on sun). They do all sorts of breakfast variety and their eggs are specially imported from italy and so the egg yolk is really yellow /​orange. I love eating here with a cuppa. On late afternoon, I love having a slice of their New York Cheese Cake with some tea. Perfect, cosy, and not expensive.

The food here is quite nice but the service is really disappointing. We went for brunch, it was quite busy and the only table available when we got to the front of the queue was for 3 people — we were told we could sit at it anyway. The food was good — freshly squeezed orange juice, good coffee and good english breakfast. However, after we’d eaten but while we were waiting for more coffee they asked us to move to another table, which we didn’t want to do, and they were so forceful we decided to leave. We didn’t pay the optional service charge which resulted in a heated debate with the member of staff who couldn’t understand why we didn’t want to pay. It’s shame, but we won’t be going back.

There are two places called Raoul’s on Clifton Road: one is the café and the other is its delicatessan counterpart. Monsieur and I have enjoyed brunch at the café a few times, but it’s pricey for what it is, so come with a full wallet. Personally, I’ve never had a problem with the café staff; they always seem personable and efficient to me. My problem is with the deli staff. In a single word, they are rude. Given that the prices are not exactly cheap, it always astounds me that the rotating staff here can be so inefficient. The blonde-​bobbed proprietor is probably to blame. She’s perfectly polite to anyone male, but rude as anything to female customers. It’s such a joke that it’s almost worth buying something here to watch her in action! Last comment — always double check your receipt. They once charged us £20.00 for a chicken but we didn’t check the card receipt until we got home and realised their mistake. Needless to say we went straight back to ask for a refund.
Summary — good food, good quality, good selection in the deli but terrible service. Café has good menu, especially for brunch, nice staff but expensive.

If your in Raouls for a coffee and a chat with your friends, or for a quiet lonely breakfast, Raouls seems to be good for every occasion. I thoroughly enjoyed the bagels, and the chocolate milkshake is just what you need every now and then. As it is in Maida Vale, the other customers are very posh, and the waiters reflect their slightly upturned-​nose attitude. Despite this, one cannot deny that the food makes up for any thing else that may be wrong.