Best Restaurants for Birthdays in Tooting

It is one of the best Italian restaurants in London

The food and drinks at this restaurant are delicious. You are going to pay accordingly, but expect to have a solid meal and very good drinks. The atmosphere is beautiful — the restaurant is well decorated. It’s not too loud and not too crowded, which makes it feel pretty posh. However, we had a very odd experience with our server Nelson. He didn’t even say hello or good evening when we arrived and he just raised his eyebrows and said “yes please” when he took his notebook out to order. While I am all for efficiencies (I used to be a server and a bartender for 3 years), part of the hospitality business is…hospitality. This man expressed no smile, no emotion, and no sense of humanness. It was so weird. One of the ladies who appeared to be a manager came over to take our dessert order and she was very friendly, but we couldn’t understand why Nelson was so extremely cold. It appeared that this was his demeanor towards other tables as well. We arrived 5 mins early, didn’t take long to order drinks and food, and didn’t linger. What was his issue? We will never know. We will definitely be back to the Ivy, but will request to not have him as a server.

We had a lovely lunch at Joia! The servers took very well care of us, and were always kind and joyful which made the experience all the better. We chose the Octopus salad as an entrée; the Bacalhau à Brás for our mains, and finally both the Chocolate orange mousse and Spiced pineapple for dessert. Everything was delightful and tasty. As a Portuguese person living in London, it was great to see some of our very traditional dishes levelled up, though they all remained very soulful and delicious as per Portuguese cuisine. Though it was gloomy outside, the view was incredible. The rooftop was unfortunately closed, and we were told it'll be open from April for the summer months, so another reason to come back. Muito obrigado for the experience, we will definitely be back!

Fabulous as usual. Definitely my favourite restaurant and always great to take my guests to Trastevere.

Outstanding food and service , very friendly and helpful waitress