Sample in Nottingham

Sarah and Perikles, England Most important thing about this restaurant that makes it different is its real home cooked Greek food, it’s what most families of Greece’s mainland cook, not just the touristic moussaka etc. Greece, like its neighbour Italy, has always been big on pasta, and the Pastichio recipe of this lady chef is out of this world. The menu is quite inventive and surprising in the right way and the presentation is brilliant. It was our favourite restaurant in Corfu during our entire holiday in May 2023. Great value as well.

Place is extremely tight. They ran out of bread which is extremely odd. Poor ventilation or the extraction fan wasn't fit for purpose so you end up smelling like food. Although the idea is great where you pay a certain price for a tapas buffet the choices aren't great and the food is average. Food is pretty much prepped in advance and reheated on order. Salt was lacking in some of the dishes as well, I'm not sure if that was intentional or not but it was very odd. Servers were rarely available to take your next order or even tell you what's what. In conclusion, great idea but executed poorly.

- Transferred from original "Tilt" Review. Cannot wait to visit the restaurant again post-lockdown. Service was immaculate - our server was incredibly friendly and attentive, providing her own recommendations without forcing them down our throats. She definitely went the extra mile to ensure we enjoyed our evening. We got to sample 13 of the on-board dishes and were pretty wow'd by the pork and the chicken options. That being said, every dish we had was very carefully prepared and really tasty! Great value for money too. Would highly recommend Sample to-all.

Gran ambiente, el menú siempre es creativo y sorprendente de la manera correcta. La comida sabe deliciosa y la presentación y el servicio es genial. Restaurante favorito en Notts. Increíble valor también. No me puedo quejar del lugar.

Sample is a great idea! Food was really tasty, it was cool to choose just 4 ingredients and get such a massive variety in dishes. My friends and I loved it.

I visited in September 2019 and had the most amazing experience, we came away having paid £25 (plus drinks) thinking what value for money it was. Last night I took my best friends and Im so disappointed to say it was a really so-so experience, the price has gone up slightly which isnt the issue at al but i didn't leave feeling it was money well spent. There wasn't a single dish that made me go "wow, that's so good!" which is such a shame. There seems to be a huge inconsistency to this place, the reviews are massively hit and miss... A restaurant can't carry on like this forever, they need to work out how to get the best out of their concept, which is brilliant, and run with it. Somethings not working and last nights experience does not make me want to return, sadly. I will just add though, the foreign male waiter is brilliant.

Sample took a bit of booking into as it is super popular - a good sign On arrival, staff were happy and welcoming. We were sat at the chef’s table, which is at the bar right by where the cooking is taking place. I am usually not keen on being really close to the chef’s as it feels intrusive, but you are off to the side and they are really chill so you soon get back to your conversation. We had the explanation about the idea and cracked on picking our first 4 ingredients. We really enjoyed the fresh veggies with the beetroot hummus. The tiny tastes of tuna - gorgeous! The smoky haddock was so tasty with its little tomato casserole...and the deep fried mushrooms were super moreish The second round and the mushrooms were a little mushy this time, so not for me. The onion was my parters treat - he LOVED it, I was ‘meh’...but that’s me and onions. A classic pear and blue cheese combo was sharp and tasty. The tiny, teeny Sunday lunch style pork dish was gorgeously meaty Round three and the best till last. The mini steak dinner was fab. But my mind was Blown! By the gnocchi in beetroot and Parmesan sauce - I’ll fight you for that any time, it’s sooooo good. The drinks were good, as a tee-totaller it’s good to have mocktails not just soft drinks from a bottle. The chefs were friendly and unaffected so nothing ‘show offy’ in their open kitchen, it’s just amazing what they create within such a small kitchen. We will so be going back.

Second time visiting Sample tonight, and was once again blown away by the entire experience. Tasty food, impeccable service and I love the atmosphere of the place. The whole concept is completely unique, and paired with the quality of the food and service the whole thing just works. It will always be my favourite place to go out to eat in Nottingham.

Visited here s a party of 3. The service was very friendly throughout and dishes arrived in good time on each round ordered. The only negative regarding this was that we were waiting at least 20 minutes between asking for the bill and receiving it. The whole concept is a great idea and I enjoyed the experience as a whole as obviously it’s not like anywhere else. However, a fair few of the dishes were disappointing. Lacking in flavour at times, but I felt there could have been some more interesting options for the tuna, pork and beef in particular. The steaks for both the beef dishes were similar, and the pork was also plain, plus none of us enjoyed the extremely fatty pork belly. The focaccia bread was lovely, and the surprise dish of the night for me was the pear bruschetta topped with a sprinkling of blue cheese, it was really good and just worked. The amount of pea shoots used on almost every single dish was also a bit much. I probably would visit again when the dishes would have all changed, but I definitely wasn’t blown away.

Two of us attended for a birthday celebration and were left neither disappointed or hungry. We were fortunate to be seated at the "chef's table" which meant we could watch the two young chefs operate at tremendous pace in a kitchen smaller than most apartment kitchens! The concept is different and full of surprises. From two bona fide carnivores the top pick was the second beetroot dish of the evening - who'd have thought it! Not every dish was a knock out, but all were flavoursome titbits. That you can reorder a dish you loved (why would you), or just keep going on an unknown adventure makes it a unique culinary adventure. Anyone expecting a Michelin star tasting experience should check their expectations at the door. This is relaxed, interactive, with you steering the menu choices, with a menu of great cocktails and drinks on offer too that you won't have to forgo the family holiday for as it is also superb value (dinner, a shared dessert, three cocktails each for under £100!). To cap it off the service was phenomenal. Two waiting staff more than capably managing a packed dining room and knocking up delicious signature cocktails. We can't wait to revisit with friends.

I’ve given Sample a 2 because the waiters were lovely. Very friendly and sweet. However, my vegan food was poor. It’s £27.95 per person and I probably had about £10 worth of food. And most of that was either really bland or way too sweet. Particularly woeful was the artichoke risotto. It tasted like chalk. In fact, everything I ate could have done with more salt and some spices. My friends had the full meat, fish and dairy experience and described it as ‘alright, but under-seaesoned’. Not a raving review for a fairly expensive dining experience. It’s a great idea. The restaurant and the staff are lovely, but the chefs need to up their game. Vegan cuisine isn’t weird or unusual these days - learn how to make plant-based food that’s interesting and tasty please!

Fantastic restaurant, really different approach to food with local sourcing and a different menu every time. It’s an experience as much as a meal, and a great choice for an occasion

We sat at the kitchen table watching the food being cooked. The taste of the food was fabulous and the staff were lovely, including the young chef. The dessert was large but delicious Would highly recommend and definitely will go back

Sample is quirky and fun, something a bit different to offer diners in Nottingham a break from the norm, but it is not without its failings which make the question of "Would I Recommend Sample" a hard one to answer. The concept is perfect. No menus to deliberate over and a variety of fresh produce, fresh from the days market, noted prominently on a blackboard as you enter the room. You note the ingredient you want and are presented a dish. When we visited there were 8 ingredients on offer including crab, leek, and 'trees' (a mix of broccoli and cauliflower). Each ingredient has 2 or dishes in total, meaning we got to sample 17 items in tasting menu sized portions. For the price (£27.95 per head) you will struggle to find a similar offering anywhere in the area. Sadly the first of the issues arose as the bread arrived at the table. This cake-like loaf was so salty as to be almost inedible. I had to leave mine as although I was ravenous I just couldn't manage it - although it was used later to mop up some delicious sauce. The first round of dishes was a mix of fantastic (crab ravioli with a crab and prawn sauce), terrible (a bland pork croquette), and unnoteworthy (a bizarre carrot-cake brushetta). It also highlighted one of the ongoing issues of the whole experience, seasoning. Too salty and too much pepper became common experiences along the way, which showed a little bit of carelessness on the chefs side. It felt sometimes like there was more focus on the presentation (lovely in all occurances I must say) than the taste. The pork croquette actually epitomises one of my main issues with this restaurant. The dish was actually a leek dish, the pork croquette topped with a weak leek sauce with no real flavour. I expected something where the humble leek was shown to be a superstar ingredient rather than a note in the background. And this persisted through several dishes which lead to a few disappointments. The highlight dish of the evening, however, shows that the chefs can entirely manage to raise lowly ingredients into the spotlight. "Trees" were what was displayed on the menu and a dish of pan-roasted cauliflower topped with a broccoli sauce and sprinkled with crispy nori was delightful. Full of fresh flavour and perfectly balanced, this dish shows signs that this restaurant could go a long way. The staff throughout the evening were informed and attentive, whilst not being in the way - exactly what this restaurant needs, even answering some of my more probing questions on the food which was nice. So I return to my question "Would I Recommend Sample", to which I think the answer is yes. Though would I recommend it to myself a second time, that still remains to be seen.

You won’t be disappointed the first time you visit this restaurant. The concept (that has been explained by others reviewers) is fabulous. It is definitely worth going for the experience. This was our second trip to Sample, once in September and the second at the start of November. 4 stars is a combined score of 5 stars for our September visit and not quite 4 for our second. Our first visit was fabulous; the concept was explained perfectly and dishes flowed without us working out what was coming next. Service was fabulous, with every dish explained as if we were in a Michelin started restaurant. Each dish was delicious and couldn’t be faulted. Having had this experience, we decided to take the family for a meal. Sadly, our second visit was not quite as brilliant. The waiter was consistently great, he explained the concept clearly to our newbies... he explained the majority of the dishes that were brought out. The waitress was not so endearing. She put dishes down on the table, unexplained as if we should know what was in the dish, sometimes she didn’t say anything at all. The restaurant was busy, but that shouldn’t show in the service, my husband is slightly deaf and she showed irritation at having to say the dishes name more than once. Once, three dishes all are at the same time, later, we waited a quite a while for a dish to come out. Towards the end of our meal, the waitress came to the table with a tick sheet and said “it looks like you’ve had everything, are you full or do you want to have any of the dishes again?” This did make us feel like we should have had enough. (Plus, we hadn’t had all the dishes!) Last time we came, this was done much more professionally, we didn’t see the tick sheet and this somehow gave us more of an air of excitement about what was coming next and not that we were part of some formula that was being stuck to. Some of the dishes were very similar to the ones we had before - just a variation in ingredient. Some of the emulsions were repetitive throughout dishes that they didn’t really go with, they just made them look pretty. Perhaps this isn’t a place you go to repeatedly - perhaps once or twice a year - which is a shame because the concept is brilliant. One final comment is about the room. It was lovely and cosy with not too many tables. However, there was a smell of oil that lingered in the air that comes with frying food - we left with this smell on our clothes. We were going home straight afterward, I wouldn’t have liked to be going to the theatre, for example. This is something that could be remedied by having a more powerful extraction fan. We will go again, but I think we will leave it for 6 months or so before going again.

Have been here 4 times since it opened and am going again in a few weeks as I just can’t wait to show all my friends! Food is incredible, the concept is so unique and the service is outstanding. The bread and oil is also a highlight. Will be a regular customer.

Visited sample when it first opened a few months ago and had easily one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten out. Have been desperate to visit again and finally got to earlier this week, but very disappointed to see that the quality of food has gone downhill (most courses quite bland, bread still doughy, and 2 courses so salty we couldn’t eat them). Also although there are various pickles displayed we were told these were no longer on offer as the restaurant was too busy (and it was only half full!). Still love the concept and the venue, but it feels like the passion has been lost from the food and service. Hoping it’s a blip and that if we come back in a few months it will be back to its original standards.