Restaurant

Name: Cafe Saffron
Status: Closed
Area: Clerkenwell
Address: 17b Aylesbury Street
London EC1R 0DR
Phone: 020 7253 4300
Website: www.cafesaffron-clerkenwell.co.uk

Visits to this restaurant ...

1. 30 Jun 2016|2. 30 Mar 2017


One of these two looks like a right tart;
the other is drinking Cobra.






Visit Report

Visit Number: 194 (visit 1 of 2 for this restaurant)
Date of visit: 30 Jun 2016
Cost per head: £26.00 (2 beers)

Serv Amb Beer Start Nan Rice Main Veg VFM Score Comments
Overall 7.0 7.0 6.3 7.3 6.7 7.1 7.7 6.6 7.8 7.14
Mark 7 8 6 5 7 8 7 8 7.0 See Mark's comments
Dave 7 9 6 9 8 7 10 8 8 8.2 See Dave's comments
Dominic 6 7 9 8 7 6 8 6 8 7.3 See Dominic's comments
Alex 8 8 7 9 7 8 8 9 8.1 See Alex's comments
Graeme 7 7 6 7 6 7 5 7 6.6 See Graeme's comments
Jon 8 7 7 8 7 9 10 5 9 8.0 See Jon's comments
Neil 7 7 5 8 5 8 7 8 8 7.0 See Neil's comments
Tim 7 3 5 5 6 7 6 6 5 5.6 See Tim's comments
Richard 6 7 6 7 7 7 5 6 8 6.4 See Richard's comments

All Comments

Mark - Pastures new as we headed to Farringdon and the Café Saffron. A quick shuffle of tables needed as we had one more than booking due to Slimline's late confirmation of attendance. Slight confusion over pops order and further delay as no menu's printed in brail. Overall presentation was good although it was hard to tell the difference between plates and serving dishes for some people. Meat Samosa starter were good but small. Lamb Ginger main was very pleasant with more kick than the England squad. Main topics of conversation were Brexit & Boris and our dismal Euro performance so plenty of debate. We managed to not over order too much although why Diggers would want special rice to add to his biryani I'm not sure. Only thing missing from the evening was Ronnie & his 4 candles.

Dave - Enjoyed my evening at Café Saffron. The restaurant had a "herb and spice" ambience and the food was excellent. I particularly enjoyed my Chicken Curry.  On the negative side there was no draught beer, no big kingfisher bottles and no after dinner choc or baileys offered. However these were minor blips and quickly forgotten with the low price tag (thanks to the top table discount which they seemed to place a lot of conditions on!).

Dominic - The Cafe Saffron is an intimate venue nestled in a fairly nondescript part of Farringdon. It was much smaller than I'd imagined but reasonably cosy (if you ignored the occasional crack and water stain on the wall!). The service was a tad slow all evening and quite firm in their "no-free-round" policy. My starter was the King Prawn Butterfly, yes, an homage to the missing Robin (aka Ronnie C mark 2!), and was quite tasty especially as the poppadom condiments were left over. I then had an "off-piste" Garlic Chilli Chicken which was very good and had quite the kick ... well, for me at least. A bit strange to have some meals served in dinner plates which then needed to be served onto another plate ... so I had mine from the original. The rest was all ok with the standout being the beloved "Matoose"!! ... thanks Tim for picking up the wine. El Prez's tasting card card meant a very affordable night for what we had. And great to see "mon copain" return, if not somewhat gutted by the 3 lions last performance!!!

Alex - Reasonably convenient location, with a smaller group and better weather the uncommon al fresco tables would be rather attractive. Tidy service but unbending on price, no liqueurs on our discount! Small place, fairly comfortable. Starter was delicious, main less outstanding but still rather good. Good VFM given our discount ...

Graeme - I wanted to like Café Saffron. It was a little reminiscent of the Herb & Spice (pre-extension), i.e. it was very small! However, it was all a bit "meh", as the young generation say, neither good nor bad. Once again I had come out without my reading glasses so I had to rely on Dom to read the menu to me. I eventually chose the Tandoori Mixed Starter (quite nice but I've had better), followed by Tandoori Tikka Jalfrezi. This was a (possibly off-menu) dish which the waiter was promoting as good value with El Presidente's 50% Tastecard discount - the sauce was very tasty but the mixed meats (one of which was on the bone) didn't really work for me. The veg dishes were small and not as fresh tasting as I would expect. Having missed the pre-match drinks, I joined the breakaway group for a post-match snifter before making the walk back to KX station. As always (most times, anyway), it was a top night out with a huge variety of topics covered.

Jon - It's difficult to fault Café Saffron other than the fact that I was humming a certain Johnny Cash song to myself on Friday morning.  The Tandoori Mix starter was very tasty with the meat all superbly cooked and, with none of the specialities taking my fancy, I went for my default lamb dansak as main course, and I wasn't disappointed.  It was superb, and the special rice to accompany it was also excellent.  The veg dishes looked a little black, but they tasted ok, but all in all it was a great find from El Pres also helped by a healthy discount from whatever website he used this time.

Neil - Quite a reasonable curry house, food was very comparable to our choice last month (Curry Leaf East) but a third less in price. The vegetable biryani was very large and tasty, onion bhaji starter also good value. Wouldn't recommend the paratha as quite floury but the sides very nice indeed. Would definitely go back but would probably avoid the '£5 a pint' meeting pub (Castle – Farringdon).

Tim - The ground floor of this restaurant is quite small and in rather poor condition - cracks in the wall, water leaks from upstairs staining the walls, cracked glass in the doors; although the basement seating area seemed in better condition. Beer was expensive, particularly the Kingfisher which was only available in small (330ml) bottles at £3.95. Wine was also a bit expensive for the quality. I thought my spicy poppadom was not as crispy as it could have been, but not so bad that it warranted a replacement. Starter of prawn puri was adequate, if unexciting. Main of Lal Mirch Murgh, was quite tasty though rather spicy, but the chicken in it was a bit dry and lacking in quantity. None of the veg stood out, but the portions were reasonable as we had quite a lot left at the end. Although it seemed like there was a bit of a wait for the starters, the service otherwise seemed quite efficient. The overall cost wasn't too bad, as we had a 50%-off-food discount, but would have been expensive at full price.

Richard - A decent performance from Café Saffron. Nice location and good pub nearby. Although a little small it had a good selection of food and it seemed freshly cooked. My chicken Korai was unexpectedly hot (spicy) which didn't suit it, although the food quality was otherwise generally good. The price was good, and got better with a Taste discount. They outlined the exclusions from the discounts before we ordered (basically no Gatter king prawn options!).


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