Sasha Happiness Project LDN
+4.5
Wow - what an incredible surprise! Just down the Kennington Road , between estates and the south circular, is this fabulous little French bistro and jazz club, Toulouse Lautrec . Run by Nolan and Florent, the sons of the owners of the next-door Lobster Po
I've only been here once and it was a random morning with a friend for breakfast. It left such a good impression that we can't wait to go back for dinner.
I had the eggs royale with smoked salmon and hollandaise sauce. A very classic dish cooked perfectly and we had it on the rooftop balcony/terrace! Awesome place! Will definitely review for dinner and add some pics!
We had the set menu, and thoroughly enjoyed the food and wine. Good variety on offer (to be expected from a French chef) and great service.
We had a fantastic date night in the piano room. We had one bottle of wine, 2 x starters, 2 x mains, and 2 x desserts - the bill came to £144 with the music and service charges included. I thought the food was delicious, but found the portions were on the smaller side. The singers were amazing, we really enjoyed the music and the mood of the place. Lots of positive vibes and great service. Would happily go back.
Wonderful little french place in the heart of kennington / edge of Elephant. It's family owned and run by 2 brothers who have somehow kept it going over the pandemic -thankfully - and for many years before.
It has a classic menus and is also open for brunch. The French toast brioche is wonderful as are the small bites. They have lots of steak on the menu cooked in a variety of ways - never had it myself (not halal). There is plenty of fish on offer, well cooked and good value.
What is quite different is the jazz club (bites etc on the 2nd floor) and piano bar (main restaurant). They have live music in the evenings with a different act on most nights (for a surcharge of £5 or £7 (weekends)).
They have a full bar - biensûr! - but they also do mocktails ....a little limited but they will make one up if you have any ideas!!
Def worth a visit!
My husband and I had our anniversary dinner at the piano room. Very cosy ambience and talented jazz singer. There wasn’t a lot of space though, but this was a minor issue.
We loved the food. The starters were superb. The asparagus dish with poached egg had such fresh ingredients. The croquettes were very tasty as well.
The mains were delicious, especially the Guinea fowl. The cream sauce was amazing. The duck confit burger was good too.
Serving sizes were just right. Service was good, although there weren’t a lot of waiters to serve all the the tables. Nevertheless, we’ll come back to try other dishes as we love Toulouse Lautrec’s take on French food.
Amazing venue with superb live music! There is a restaurant on the ground floor, a piano bar/restaurant on the 1st floor and and a jazz club on the top floor. Get your tickets early as events get full quickly. The jazz club was superb, great sound, very relaxed atmosphere and lots of drinks and food on offer. Would definitely frequent it going forward!
***edit***
We went back tonight and it is cost that the bad experience below was a mere blip. All tonight was fantastic and many thanks to Nolan and Team for recognising the issues and rectifying them quickly. Welcome back to our local favourites list!
***precious outdated review***
I don’t leave negative reviews lightly for independent local businesses, but this place really let me down tonight. We have eaten here dozens of times, and I used to class it as a real local gem - in fact I brought my extended family here on Christmas Day and spent over £1,000 in the restaurant, so I know this place well.
However, tonight we felt embarrassed to have recommended it to friends. The front of house team were maybe overstretched, but the service has hugely gone down hill. No warmth, hospitality, or sense of service. We were constantly left feeling we weren’t looked after and it impacted our evening at every touch point. Some examples:
-We were left without menus for 10 minutes when we were seated. There was no sense of urgency thereafter to make up for the mistake.
- nobody checked if we wanted drinks when glasses were empty
- when we did ask for a second bottle of wine (after waiting for the server to acknowledge us) we waited far too long for it to be delivered, because he was playing with the iPad system to put it through (he easily could have done after serving us)
- after the live music ended the server disappeared and the dining room got very cold and the room filled with the smell of cigarette smoke (It later transpired the door to a terrace had been opened and I presume the waiter was out there smoking)
- we had to flag down a different server from downstairs to ask for the bill and when we asked to reduce the service charge from £26 (table of 4) to £10 in view of the various issues, it took 10 minutes to get a revised bill - we expressed our dissatisfaction at having to wait even longer and we were dismissed (apparently the new integrated billing system couldn’t be overwritten at the table so we had to be further inconvenienced).
- finally, we noticed on the bill that they add the service charge to the £7 performance fee now, not only to the food and drink, which makes absolutely no sense and inflates what is already a generous service charge percentage.
Please bring back some of the old front of house team, or at least some of the warmth that used to make this a home from home for us.
Lovely, cosy jazz lounge with a lovely stage
The table's very small and chairs too close to each other not very comfortable to sit for few hours while watching the music shows.
Service can be improved as was some delays between meals and lack attention to detal ,how can you eat desert without cutlery? For the prices we get charged, we felt a bit on the careless side. Plus, once the desert arrived, strawberry on top of cheesecake was cut with the knife previously used to cut onion, left not nice tase afterwards .It's is some place for improvement, but rating 4 stars as a music event was great 🎶
This restaurant is a good France restaurant. Its decoration is lovely. Staff is very friendly. You can listen good live music. We went as a large group for birthday party. Everything was good.
Food was incredible. I had the French onion soup to start followed by the duck a l'oranage and then the chocolate fondant. My husband had the small charcuterie board, the cassoulet and the tarte aux fine pomme.
Everything was absolutely amazing, from the food to the staff to the live band.
We had a booking for the piano floor. It was really great, great atmosphere, French food with amazing quality, and the pianist also was very good and interactive. We would go back, and we will recommend for sure for our friends, for a fine dining experience.
Lovely evening at the Live Drawing experience at Toulouse Lautrec
Great value for money brunch menu. We had English breakfast, shakshuka, and a croque madame. It came with lots of baguettes and fantastic salty butter... yummmm. With coffee it was about £15 each. Very filling and great value.
Amazing dinner and wonderful music at the piano bar. Short 3 to 5 minute walk from Kennington Station.
A nice jazz bar experience, and they also do piano nights.
Toulouse Lautrec was amazing. Certainly one of my favourite place. We had snails Served in their shells with Homemade Garlic Butter, Lamb shoulder,Basket of Sourdough Bread & French Salted Butter. Lastly was a special which was duck breast I think, but it was lovely. A French Lady called Rose attended to us, and the service offered was impeccable. And to round off the night, we entreated ourself to some jazz music upstairs while sipping some merlot gran reserva and crowning it up with Crème Brûlée dessert. The ambience was great.
This place is super unique - jazz bar, piano bar & french restaurant in ONE. The food was epic, can’t wait to go back and check out the music. Staff were super courteous, well informed and helpful - none of us were disappointed with what we ordered. You won’t regret going here! Being an icecream junkie I really rate the selection of flavours and consistency of the icecream.
I have literally never reviewed anywhere in my life but my experience was so lovely that i just had to. The staff were all so lovely, made me feel so welcome and valued as a 20yo student with not a lot of money. The food was incredible, I had the sea bream which has got to be some of the best fish i have ever eaten. The atmosphere was perfect, the music was lovely and we even made friends with a lovely couple next to us who were regulars. Just such great staff, lovely people and amazing food. Thank you for making my valentines day celebration the best ever!!
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