Bibigo Bar & Dining

Bibigo is a perfectly nice restaurant. It just didn’t have any wow factor that pushes it into the 4 or 5 star range.
The location, just behind Marks & Spencer on Oxford Street is great. I really can’t complain about the prices either because I had 2 courses and a cocktail for under £25. The food was good but I’ve had better elsewhere in London. For instance, the bibimbap in the hot bowl had all been fully cooked already so the flavours didn’t really mix.
I would certainly return if I was looking for food in the area, but it might not be my first thought.

Bibigo has some delicious entrées. We ordered a selection of entrées and whilst all delicious, my favourite, by far, was the courgette pancake. The cocktails were presented really well, I tried my friend’s and it was really tasty and refreshing.
Unfortunately that’s the end of the good review as I get really let down by the main courses (I tried my partner’s dish too). I think it really felt like falling from some sort of food cloud nine. How could it go so wrong? Staff were OK, they didn’t seem to understand an awful lot of English but polite enough and did their best given the major disadvantage of not being able to understand the customers. I wouldn’t return but worthy of two stars as I enjoyed the entrées and cocktails seems to go down well.

Bibigo has given me the best Korean dining experiences I’ve ever had and it’s probably good enough to rival the renowned quality of Korean dining that is bestowed upon New Malden, although I have limited first-​hand experience of the latter. I have been to this Bibigo twice with my visits being a year apart and yet both experiences have been consistently rewarding.
First off you are given a courteous welcome, the tables are pristinely set and noticeably a good distance apart, which you don’t oftentimes see in a restaurant in Central London. The kitchen can be seen through a glass window and all the chefs are decked in clean white unform with the classic chef hats.
My friend and I tried the dinner selection offer and ordered one option a-​la-​carte. Little were we to know that ordering an extra dish to eat was setting quite an ambitious challenge for our stomachs to take on. The dinner selection turns out to be stupendously good value and a hearty meal in itself. Due to this offer, a meal that would otherwise have cost me £24 now only cost me £13.
The salad was the most delicious salad I can ever remember having at any restaurant; so good that I would happily have eaten double the already very generous portion provided per person. The description of this salad as given on the menu is: ‘Korean Chopped Salad Freshly chopped cos lettuce, napa cabbage, radicchio, bean sprouts, papaya, lentils and crispy fried spring roll paper tossed in homemade Korean sesame dressing’ and the real thing was every bit as elaborate and mouth-​watering. The traditional ‘Pajeon: Seafood Pancake Korean style pancake with leeks, squid, mussel and shrimp. Served with citrus soy sauce’ was seasoned well with a delicately crispy rim. The ‘Japchae Stir-​fried glass noodles with spinach, onion, pepper and shredded beef on top’ (which I had ordered separately but which is also available on the dinner selection) was a great combination of warm, silky smooth glass noodles with crunchy well-​cut vegetables. Now for the mains… the ‘Bossam: Pork Belly Succulent slow cooked pork belly. Served with cucumber Kimchi, spicy mooli Kimchi and soybean dip’ makes you full just looking at it; a big platter of juicy slices of pork alongside a pleasant dip and pickled cucumber as well as kimchi and lettuce to wrap the pork in. The ‘Hot Stone Seafood Rice: Rice with a mix of seafood in a sizzling pot. Served with spicy soy sauce’ was equally as satisfying with a good variety of pieces of seafood mixed in with spring onion and fragrant rice.
Meanwhile the service is humble and yet due diligent as staff discreetly offer to replace your plate or wipe the table and they check your table without being overbearing. They willingly provide hot water to drink and refill as requested. The toilets are remarkably clean, more so than I can remember from any that I’ve visited lately (as the flush is motion sensored and the nothing-​out-​of-​place layout is as if it belongs to a showroom). Basically all the little things that can make a dining experience that much more enjoyable were accounted for and the food itself was well prepared, suitably tasty and perfectly presented. Bibigo makes excellence look easy.

Food: Amazing! I loved the really tender Bulgogi’s beef with a hint of sweetness! It matched with spicy raddish kimuchi!
Atmosphere: Beautiful! It reminded me of restaurant in South Korea! Clean and modern interior. It’s good not only for girl’s chat meeting but also for date!
Cost performance: This restaurant is the first restaurant which satisfied me with price and food quality balance since I came to London! I visited here for lunch and my friends and I ordered lunch set, kimuchi and a drink! Overall it was £15 including service charge per person.
In lunch set which is £9, you get a delicious decent size salad, starter (I ordered vegitable pancake which was really nice) and main dish.

Beautifully crafted set menu and easy environment to dine although all tables are so «intimately» close to each other… If you do not mind to overhear others conversation, this is a good place to grab a quick lunch or dinner.
Ordered their dinner set and that came as a small three courses: green salad for starter and pork belly for the main plus a small bowl of deep fried sweet chicken balls as a side dish. The set menu was more like a sample tasting, if you are super hungry, you will need to order more. ;)
Highly recommend their classic Korean rice wine to those who cannot drink much but still enjoy drinking.

I think this place is really underrated. I’ve been here quite a few times now & always opt for the dinner fixed menu which has everything I like at the cheap price of just £13 for 3 courses! You can’t get good food for that price anywhere else in central London for sure!
The starter salad is always perfectly crunchy, sweet & savoury. I’ve only ever had the Pajeon: Seafood Pancake because I love it so much! The flavours and the texture are spot on. For mains I’ve had both the pork belly, which is always cooked perfectly crispy, and the Hot Stone Seafood Rice, which is delicious and a lot more filling if you’re feeling hungry.
I’ve yet to try a dessert (mainly because I’m always so full by the end of the 3 course) but I love the cocktails here, they also have several non-​alcoholic options of which my absolute favourite is the Lychee Debonair.
I’d definitely recommend giving this place a try — especially for a cheap eat in central London.

Very cool ambiance and I loved the vibe. It’s nice to eat Asian food in a locale that’s actually taken time to think about the décor.
The food was good although not as flavoursome as I was hoping. I guess their website should have been an indicator of this (apparently ‘balanced for the western palate’.)
We ordered off their £13 menu to get a few standard odds and ends plus a few off the a la carte menu:
Korean chopped salad: it was tasty but nothing to write home about. It was kind of like a less interesting version of fattoush.
Bibigo skewers: beef, king oyster mushrooms and scallions on skewers. This needed more flavour and/​or marinade.
Pajeon: this was probably the best thing we had. Very crispy exterior with the seafood perfectly cooked inside. This could have been bigger and included more sauce though but otherwise, very tasty.
Bossam: the pork belly was too lean which made the meat dry. I was expecting melt in your mouth strips of pork belly but instead it was fairly thickly sliced squares of very lean pork. It came with lettuce leaves which you wrapped around the pork. Oddly, it came with some radicchio which was the wrong flavour to go with the pork and pickled condiments. We didn’t finish this.
We also had a beef stew with tofu, courgette and mushrooms. I don’t remember what this was called. It had a slight kick to it and was tasty.
Overall, a so-​so meal. Definitely not the best Korean I have had. I’d opt for a more traditional restaurant next time and get the coolness factor at a bar before or after!

Being from SoCal with tons of Korean restaurants, this place rises in quality of ingredients but not flavored. Super nicely presented of course.
I ordered the stone pot bimbimbap. Sadly, it didn’t get to that crispness I was hoping for with my rice with the pot. Boo.
Loved the kimchi and radish panchan, but as my
Korean friend say — what we have to pay for that?! crazy. But, hey — we are in London!
Overall, I would probably make it back again but check out the other location in angel to see if it had stronger flavors.

Au détour d’une rue dans le très touristique quartier de Regent Street, nous avons trouvé ce petit restaurant coréen.
Ce qui nous a attiré au premier coup d’œil c’est le prix du menu déjeuner: 9£ pour salade, entrée, plat!
L’accueil est digne d’un grand restaurant: une hôtesse qui nous accompagne à une table, une serveuse en tenue asiatique qui vient nous apporter les menus et qui nous mets les serviettes sur les genoux…
Nous avons donc pris le menu spécial:
— Salade coréen à base de choux, salade coupée finement, soja, … Avec une sauce délicieuse
— Entrée au choix: galette de courgettes et calamars frits en cornet pour nous. C’est bon mais sans plus. Par contre toutes leurs sauces sont tops! Il y a aussi au choix du poulet frit avec une sauce piquante.
— Plat au choix: Bibimpap au tofu et Poulet mariné pour nous. Il y aussi le traditionnel barbecue (Bulgogi) et le bibimpap existe au bœuf.
Les plats sont bons et plutôt copieux. Le barbecue et le poulet sont servis sans riz. Il faut ajouter 1£ si vous en voulez. Idem pour les accompagnements non prévus comme le kimchi.
On s’en sort avec une note correcte: 21,5£ à deux!
Attention au pourboire qui est inclus dans l’addition à hauteur de 12,5% de vos plats… Bön à savoir quand on a un budget serré!

We were here as a group of three for a Friday lunch.
After studying the menu in some depth, I went for the three course set lunch for nine pounds, as it had a few things in it that had caught my eye in the menu proper. The set lunch had a choice of four or five things for the final two courses. The starter was an interesting and tasty salad, very nicely dressed with some flakes of undetermined origin that were nonetheless appreciated! Just close your eyes and don’t imagine what sort of animal or animal part it might have come from.
I had the courgette omelette for the second course. It was nicely presented and very well cooked. For main course, I had a bibimbap. I was not blown away. The ingredients didn’t seem to form a cohesive whole and none of them were that tasty on their own. There was not much of the meat at all, but think back to that nine pound price, they’re chefs, not miracle workers.
I had a korean beer. It was smooth as advertised, but I found it to be something of a non-​event and would much prefer the japanese beer they offer.
Overall, fairly startling value. The service was top rate despite one of my companions being pretty damn rude at times! Very friendly and keen to help. Consider going for something else instead of the bibimbap though. The menu had a lot of tasty looking meat on it. I think these people know what they are doing. I will be back for more.