Athataya Thai and Vietnamese Restaurant in Kensington and Chelsea

Excellent food, good prices and very friendly staff. Good size portions and lots to choose from. Nice setting and good atmosphere, will eat here again.

Hearing of and reading reviews of this place I was truly excited. I went to dine with my friend, his dad who was visiting from NYC and my dad who was visiting from Hong Kong. We were hoping to impress with this meal, having heard of its authenticity. The experience of service and the restaurant itself is fine. The servers are kind, the hotel is grand, the entrance ways are elegant and the view is one of the finest London has to offer. The food was, at points, remarkably good. The famed duck deserves the credibility it receives, almost unanimously, from all who try it and from those sat across from you who eagerly watch, mouths watering, as a chef comes to deftly compartmentalise the fatty poultry. This was, without doubt, the highlight of the night, the spectacle that will remain in the visiting father’s mind on their long flights back home. The other dishes neither impressed nor disappointed. Coming from Hong Kong, these other Chinese staples were occasionally flat in flavour (Choi sum), margins off authentic (gong bo chicken), or slightly smaller and less punchy than expected (sea bass). There’s is nothing to really complain about here. To a local these dishes are quite good, to someone who has not been exposed to them so much they are likely fantastic. The desserts need not be commented upon, they also did not impress, but we did not expect fine sweet treats from a Chinese restaurant. Why have I given 4 instead of 5 stars? One glaring issue pervaded our fine dinner that had consisted in astronomically tasty duck and reasonably well flavoured sides (if you don’t count £5 for rice - a tragedy). This was the service. Whilst the staff were just as friendly and attentive as one might expect from a place such as this, their tableside manners were, in my opinion, not nearly up to the standard one might expect from a restaurant costing £90/head. Staff members regularly moved glasses and bottles by their rim, chopsticks by their end, and any items on the table left in the way of the dishes (such as phones or wallets). This is, in my opinion, a marked point that reduces the service quality. The staff were lovely, truly, but their manners were not. This act of touching a guest’s glass by its rim, without asking if they might move it first, appalls at the highest level of dining. In sum: the duck blew my little smooth brained mind, the dishes filled my expectant belly, the desserts halfway satisfied my sweet little tooth, the manners by table left a lasting bitter taste as a left.

Nice and cosy Filipino restaurant close-by to the Design Museum. Perfect for a dinner or lunch, great food and wonderful hospitality.

Very very informal. High food quality. Buy for a song

Small restaurant but high quality Japanese food and good service.