Big Jo in Islington

Good food. We asked in advance if they were dog friendly, but sadly were asked to leave when another customer comlained about the dog barking! Also , they don't take Triodos cards, which is slightly odd

Had a fabulous lunch today. Delicious food, fantastic wine, amazing service, beautiful people. 🥰 A perfect way to spend an afternoon!

Such a great experience for eating something. Presentation is 5 star as always, this is not my first time to eat here but this time was overwhelming in terms of taste of incredibly delicous food. Manner of waitresses so polite and so helpful to decide our orders. Changing of menu everyday makes this place magnet to experience different delicious culinary

A very disappointing evening visit. The ambience is fine and the food's not bad, but portions are small for the price and what really spoils it all is the cost of drinks. The wine is ridiculously expensive and the night we visited, the cheapest bottle that was actually available was £34 and barely drinkable. Nothing on the label or in the description was recognisable and we foolishly took the waitress's recommendation. Service was friendly and efficient but one couldn't help feeling that staff had been trained to make customers feel that they were privileged to be served rather than being ripped off. I'm afraid that we left feeling ripped off. Never again! There are enough other honest eateries around.

I'm a big fan of Big Jo/Jolene Hornsey, and the whole Jolene group, and I'm a regular visitor to its different spots, but when I went one Saturday morning in Jan for a coffee and a few pastries with a friend, I was made to feel a bit unwelcome by the staff. I had a booking and when I arrived I was told by a visibly annoyed front-of-house staff member that I was 'two minutes early' and so I'd have to wait until she had a chance to get the table ready. I was absolutely fine with waiting and was more than happy to do so until the people at the table had finished eating - it's a deservedly popular and busy place - but I was quite explicitly made to feel that I had inconvenienced the front-of-house member by arriving essentially on time for a reservation. My friend and I then got our food/coffees and after about half an hour we were then repeatedly (at least three times) asked by one member of staff if we were getting any more pastries, evidently with the intention of moving us along. I totally understand that the Jolene team wanted to give our seats to customers who were ordering plates from the menu, rather than getting the cheaper food from the bakery, but with a 10:30 booking on a Saturday morning, I wouldn't have expected to be made to feel quite so unwelcome for spending 30 mins eating pastries/drinking coffees. As I said, I'm a big fan of Jolene and I'm hoping this was a one-off, but I think some more thought maybe needs to go into balancing the popularity of the restaurant with the vibe customers are given.