SuperStar BBQ

This was such a disappointing experience! Perhaps I’ve just had better menus and better service in Canada, Beijing, and Hong Kong… but I felt this place is lacking in all directions. Too expensive for the quality you’re getting.
I ordered a simple tea. The water was warm and the pot was only half full. Jap Chae was a tiny little portion. Kimchi was over priced. Korean Fried chicken was bland and not what KFC is suppose to look like.
I really dispise servers when they stand at the table as you sort out the bill among friends. It’s a lot of pressure. But that’s what they did.
The only saving grace about this restaurant is their Tofu Kimchi. Cant’ go wrong there.

I would rather give minor stars.
The service was terrible. I went yesterday with a happy mood, and stood inside of the entrance for five minutes and no one come to ask me for sitting in. I asked a waiter for a table for two, he asked me «reservation?» I said no, and he said he would go check, and then he continually served plates without letting me know how long should I wait and etc. I went to the corner counter asked a older guy looked like nothing to do and said I had two, suddenly many people came inside the restaurant and he asked me «reservation?» I said no, and he looked across me to asked the other lady who walked in the restaurant after me about 10 minutes, she said she had reservation. And the old guy continually looked and asked across me to two guys also came in latter than me and they didn’t have reservation, and I asked again, I had two. He said I was later then all the people just walked in, I literally said I WAS BEFORE THEM… and the two guys said yes I was before them, and the old restaurant guy said” it doesn’t matter”.
Wait, hello, I saw this old guy wondering in the bar counter corner when I walked in and he didn’t notice customers walked in this restaurant? All I want at that moment is «I have two people, if you have table now good let me know and walk me in; if not, that’s fine, tell me how long should I wait and I will see if it worths the wait», this is a really common sense the old guy should know as a restaurant whatever position he was.
Terrible service and don’t even mention the food, not interested in knowing how it is. Bye

I went yesterday for a BBQ night with my friends. It was not great, but it was not bad. All in all not very memorable.
We had Korean beer and some mandoo — they were good, crispy and not too oily. Then we ordered several things to share for the BBQ. The sesame and garlic beef was good quality meat with a good marinade (but at £8.50 for 100g it better be). The chicken bulgogi was good as well although not marinated enough for my taste. The marinated lamb was a bit bland. Biggest disappointment: the mixed veggies. We were already picturing ourselves grilling yummy veggies on the BBQ and dipping them in spicy sauce. We had two pieces of sweet potatoes, four tiny pieces of onions, a few bits of red peppers, three slices of courgette, two of aubergine and maybe three of mushroom. I don’t get it. Vegetables are cheap. This cost us £6. Their miso paste is good but £3 for a little bit of miso paste and six salad leaves? Seriously? I know it seems like I’m being stingy but honestly I don’t mind paying more for great food but this was just okay. I know the rent in the area must be quite expensive, but all the other places on Central St Giles have better value for money I think. Also, it might be because I really really like Korean BBQ and stuck to that instead of trying the other dishes (which according to the other reviews are really good).
The service was… slightly awkward. When the BBQ was hot enough someone just came and put the meat on it for us and then left with my friend’s tongs (they give you nice purple tongs to put the meat on the grill without burning yourself :)). That was majorly weird. Our waiters and waitresses were all very sweet but on a Tuesday night at 8.30 the place was more than half empty and they were a bit restless and kept coming to see us. Every five minutes. To check if we were okay. We were.
We paid around £20 per person but to be honest I was still a little hungry. That being said I do eat a lot (hey I need energy, I spend most of my time being excited and running around). The place is really nice. High ceilings, little bubble lights, beautiful wooden tables, well dressed waiters and waitresses.
It is an OK place. The lunch menu they offer seems like good value (it’s £14.50) because their meat really is good quality. Not the worst choice if you’re in the area — but not the best one!

I love Korean barbecues. It’s such a social thing although I do understand not everyone likes paying to cook their own food. But maybe if knew a place that sell high cuts of meat for a good price, found the time to cut it, marinate it, have a big enough fridge to rest it all and and then an indoor smokeless barbecue then maybe I might consider. I don’t so I come here. Plus it’s pretty romantic. I cook for you and you cook for me… *heart melts*
I use to go to Kintan to satisfy my BBQ cravings but sadly Kintan, I’ve found somewhere better. Superstar BBQ serves higher quality of food across their whole menu and not just focusing on their barbecue meats but also their small dishes. Their service is also quicker. The only thing I want to complain out is the cold draft coming in making it extremely difficult to tolerate. Even when the barbecue was on, it didn’t warm us up.
On to our food…
We started with a pot of green tea which turns out to be genmaicha (roasted brown rice green tea). It was a lovely surprise. Soothing and warming!
Five pieces of KFC in sweet soy
Where a lot of Kintan’s small dishes were uninspiring and bland, Superstar places a lot of attention to detail on their small plates. Their fried chicken for example was amazing. It didn’t look like much at first with a little sauce drizzled here and there. But the batter was light and airy, seasoned perfectly and covering lovely succulent pieces of chicken.
Japchae
Everyone is raving on about the japchae and they have every reason to. The glass noodles were silky, sticky and full of bounce, stir fried in a lovely sweet soy and sesame oil marinate. We ordered the vegetable version instead of the other beef option and there was a lovely mix of crunchiness and softer textures. Very delicious.
Mandoo
It is as good as dumplings can get. The skin was crisp on one side from being grilled yet soft and thin on the other side, incasing a lovely juicy pork meatball that was bursting with flavour from the addition of greens mixed in.
Seafood pajeon
Seafood pa jeon unfortunately was more like vegetable pa jeon. There was barely any seafood in sight, maybe the occasional baby shrimp. It was a little thinned out and more dense than I prefer but the flavours were fine.
Yuk hwae.
I adored the beef tartare and how wonderfully slippery and fresh it was. The meat was tender, springy with lovely balanced flavours of sweetness from the juicy pear and the creamy yolk.
Rib galbi
Recommended throughout social media these did not disappoint. It was enriched with a lovely sweet savoury marinate, beautifully tender and juicy.
Wine pork
These however were disappointing being quite bland and chewy. I couldn’t taste the wine either.
Speciality marinated lamb
These were incredibly tasty. The marinate brought in so much flavour and depth. It is just as tender as the rib galbi but even sweeter in taste.
Chicken boolgogi
These came as thigh meat which were much to my preference being more flavoursome and tender in general. They were also well seasoned so you can taste the flavours throughout the whole chicken.
Lettuce and miso paste
These were to wrap the meats after they were cooked. But I found the choice of lettuce they used kind of poor as they were rougher and denser compared to, let’s say the round lettuce, which masked a lot of the softer texture and flavour of the meat. The miso paste however helped bring out more flavour.
Galbi Tang
A great way to wash down all the food was a type of Korean clear beef soup that had a generous portion of beef brisket stewing in it for hours creating a rich and soothing broth, full of flavour and perfect for a cold winter’s day.
Honey quince shaved ice
We ordered one of their infamous shaved ice that is quite pricey for £6.95. It was lovely with the grated syrup orange peel, which balanced out with the sweet condensed milk, sour plum, honey and the shaved ice itself that took away the sickliness.
I was really surprised about how good Superstar BBQ was as their uncreative name does not help. I suppose you should never judge a book by its cover. Being in St Giles it is a very gorgeous building in a gorgeous location too, with floor to ceiling windows and lovely wooden booths surrounding the dessert and drinks bar. Looking forward to going again when my next craving hits.

I was at an event in the area and looking for a late dinner around 9 PM. My first thought was to go to Ippudo or Kanada-​Ya for a bowl of ramen, hoping there was not a line, but once by Ippudo I saw SuperStar BBQ next door, which apparently has flown under my new restaurant radar. It had been too long since I had a good Korean BBQ, and I could see empty booths in the window, so we ducked in to check it out.
It took no time to decide to go for the set menu, as I was with someone that had never tried Korean BBQ before. It was £25 for the most basic version that we got, but there is also a £30 and £35 version that has more starters and different meats. For starters, got kimchi, japchae, dumplings, and few other pickled vegetable plates for appetizers. I thought that the japchae was heavy on the vegetables and light on the actual noodles, but otherwise they were quite nice.
We got three types of meat, and we were recommended to eat them in the order of chicken bulgolgi, beef bulgolgi, and spicy pork, from less seasoned to more seasoned. This came with lettuce wraps and a delicious miso paste, two dipping sauces, a bowl of miso soup, rice, and some raw vegetables to also throw on the grill. The grill was ready to go within 2 minutes and we each had our own tongs to handle the raw meat. The meat slices were very thin so they cooked quickly. No one came by to check on our cooking, but it was rather straightforward, and there was also a guide on the table.
The meal finished with a cinnamon punch that I’d never tried before and some fresh fruit that had been thoughtfully arranged, i.e. the orange peel had been cut away from the fruit so it was easy to eat, and the apple slice had its peel carved. We also enjoyed a small glass of the Kirin beer on tap. I really enjoyed the dining experience and especially liked that it was not too busy, we didn’t feel rushed despite dining until nearly 10 PM, and the modern glass space with the high ceilings is a pretty unique feel for London.

This place was crowded, reservation is highly recommended.
This modern and feels like an «western”-restaurant. I instantly noticed the amazing interior from a far distance when I walked toward the restaurant with seemingly only windows as walls.
The restaurant might feel airy and open but there are no direct vacuum/​fan/​ventilation directly above the BBQ grill so you will leave with a smell on your clothes.
The meat was great but the lettuce and vegetables felt really disappointing. The vegetables was way to expensive, you got a small plate for £4−5. Normally you get quite a lot of kimchi but here you only get 4 – 5 leaves.
The Japchae I orded was so good I had to order another plate, recommended!
The service was OK, the restaurant is curved so you cant really contact a waiter unless you wait for them to come or you leaving your chair.
The only reason why this place gets 4 stars instead of 5 is because it’s too pricey, especially the vegetables.

Korean BBQ that is open, airy, purpose built into the tables and you probably don’t need a reservation!
Stumbled upon this one after giving up on the queue at Kanada Ya once again and was not disappointed. We went for the set menu 1 which, for 25 per person is actually quite a bit of food but not an amazing value for money. I would have liked if they had some other wrap leaf options but it does the trick when you want to stop in and grill some meat, will probably do ala carte next time and hone in on our favorites.

Great place if you’re looking for Korean BBQ! The meat is well marinated and bimbimbap is amazing! Though my only nagging concern was the use of lettuce in their Korean BBQ, hence the only reason why I took 1 star away; should have use Romanian lettuce?!
Price wise — good for value
Waiting time — be prepared to wait! We waited in the bar which was pretty entertaining with the same song on loop, and a bar with no bartender. To be fair, they had the occasional waiter/​waitress coming down to get your drinks order.

SuperStar BBQ does exactly what it says on its brand name, the BBQ items were indeed pretty dame good, great marinating on the meats in a modern, well spread out, comforting setting. The none BBQ items were less impressive however, fairly average and quality wise, were something you can easily found elsewhere. The risk of indoor BBQ is the smokiness could get out of control and make the whole dining room extremely greasy in smell, but thanks to the high ceiling and large space, this is not such an issue for SuperStar BBQ. Together with the affordable prices, this makes an excellent venue for Korean BBQ.

The food was OK. We had some of the BBQ meats (lamb + feathered beef) which were good. We were advised to get the ‘Lettuce and Miso’ plate, which turned out to be 5 leaves of lettuce and a small pot of dip for the exorbitant price of £3. We also had the Bibimbap (pork I think) which was really good.
The service was good but I just found it a bit underwhelming overall.

My mouse hovered between 3 and 5 star for this one, so I went for 4. (I have always been told that I go with the easy way out, sorry).
So why did I want to give them a 5? BECAUSE KOREAN BBQ. I just love cooking my own food (when not at home) — everything here was super tasty, the menus were a very good value for money (for Central London). We went for a £25 p/​p menu and had LOADS enough to eat, including noodles, gyoza, meat, rice, miso soup and a desert.
And why did I want to give them a 3? Well, I hate bad service. We were told that we needed to wait about 15−20min for a table, and ended up waiting 45min. The waiters were a bit ditzy, not really with it, and generally just not helpful. They weren’t «bad» per se, but urgh, when you’ve already been there over 1h30 you just don’t like having your drinks «forgotten».
Would go back, just not on a Friday evening.

I thought SuperStar BBQ was A-​OK. There were a couple of strange things that meant I couldn’t give it 4 – 5 stars, but I did really enjoy all the food. The portions are not huge, but we were full for about £23, including drinks… so it’s not bad value.
** The kimchi and namul were all good (although the portions of these are teeny)
**** I really liked the kimchi jeon pancake
**** Their Jap che (glass noodles) are super tasty too (although Jap che is always tasty!)
*** The bibimbap was alright — although I’ve had much better in London
Meat:
**** belly pork was looovely (I didn’t get much as my friends munched it so fast!)
**** spicy pork was really good too, and was a larger portion.
*** the kalbi was pretty good.
*** sesame garlic sirloin was yummy!
**** I liked all the veggies, and loved that it came with a huge piece of garlic for us to roast.
*KFC fail*
I really wanted to order lots of KFC… it was the thing I was most looking forward to. However, even though it was pretty early on a Tuesday evening, they’d already run out. Two different waiters broke the sad news to us (no chicken — le sigh!) …but then they still tried to charge us for it. They had to check several times and kept asking «are you sure you didn’t get served chicken in a little silver bucket!?» It seemed like they didn’t believe us. It was like rubbing salt into a chicken-​less wound.
*mini rant for Unilocalers*
I don’t mind paying for kimchi and namul in London. It’s mean when Unilocalers deduct stars for that. It’s not like it is a normal dish here, so you shouldn’t expect to get everything for free! Please remember this isn’t Korea or America. Having said that, charging £3 for a few bits of lettuce was a total rip off!

My first visit of SuperStar BBQ was during their second week of opening and came out thinking whether I would visit again. However, they did a one day 50% off for food and I took the opportunity to revisit. It was wonderful to see the improvements that had been made in the food and the staff seem to be better trained.
The KFC (Korean Fried Chicken) in sweet chilli sauce is one of my favourite on the menu. You can order in either 5, 10 and 22 pieces. The first time we ordered the five pieces but only counted four pieces. We had more people in our recent visit and ordered a bucket containing 22 pieces (hopefully it did!).
There are other sauces (special soy, kimchi mayo) you can choose but I feel it’s never the same if it not the sweet chilli sauce. Both time it was cooked beautifully, succulent chicken pieces with a slight crispy coating wrapped in a sticky sweet spicy sauce.
The pa jeon I was greatly surprised to find had improved since our first visit. The texture and the taste of the batter was definitely much better. Even when it arrived to the table it looked more comparable to the par jeon you would find at other London restaurants.
The jap chae is served with or without beef (additional £1.50), which gives you the option to cater for vegetarian or non-​beef eater. The dish was full of flavour but I felt the glass noodle was a touch too soft. Also the portion was small for £6, compared to others places.
Although the menu is simple there are still a wide variety of choice for BBQ. There is a section for beef, lamb chicken, seafood and vegetables.
We ordered both the rib galbi (£7), as well as the sesame & garlic sirloin beef (£8.50). I would recommend the bolgogi rib galbi beef which is much tender and full of flavour from the marinated sauce.
Belly pork (£7) was served thinly slice which is how and it should be served. The pork had a good consistent of lean and fat meat.
The kimchee soup at Superstar BBQ is good which is served in a traditional Korean soup bowl and comes with a separate bowl of rice. The soup is like a stew which consisted of tofu, Kimchee and sliced pork. It was spicy but not burning for me. It’s defintely a dish that is great for the cold winter season.
I am glad to have revisit Superstar BBQ because the improvements has made a different. It would be a place I would consider to recommend if you looking for Korean food. The range of dishes that is offered in the menu gives you a good overview of Korean cuisines.
It does depends what you order, but you could easily spend over £20 at Superstar BBQ. I did felt some of the portion was small and expensive so be careful not to break your piggy bank! There are set menu ranging from £25 to £35 (excluding drinks and service charge) which looks great if you not sure what to order.

Wonderful service and internal décor, this Korean restaurant is let down by its poor, measly and expensive food.
We ordered a pajeon (seafood pancake) to start, which was tiny and lacking much seafood. Much unlike good korean restaurants, the kimchi was an expensive addition.
We ordered kalbi, which came in a pitifully small portion. The meat was fine — nothing special, but we felt like we were leaving still hungry and significantly poorer.
This stylish place won’t dethrone the other, cheaper, more generous and korean restaurants in the area.