The Real Greek

We were looking for somewhere to eat after the theatre, and there are so many options in the area! We settled on The Real Greek because it looked pretty nice from the outside, and I didn’t have interwebs on my phone to find the perfect spot on Unilocal.
The upstairs was jam packed with tables crowded together but the server led us straight downstairs to a tiny area with 5 tables and some very lovely pictures of Greece. Unfortunately it also smelled quite a bit like toilets.
Our server was in and out, and not super committed to making sure we were happy and had everything we needed. I understand that it was very busy, but service can easily make or break an experience, and it did not make this experience, sadly. We ordered some things to share, including the smoked eggplant dip, tiropitakia, halloumi veg skewer, and grilled octopus.
The eggplant dip was truly outstanding and I was excited for what the rest of the food would bring. The halloumi was also delicious, but quite small, but quite greasy, as was the tiropitakia. The filo was weirdly deep fried and suuuper greasy, and the filling was also greasy and quite salty. The octopus tasted weird to me, a bit old and chewy, although Boyfriend really liked it.
The meal was fine, the service was seriously lacking, and it was quite pricey for a small amount of food. I probably wouldn’t give it another try, to be honest.

Service was excellent and food was delicious. Nice pre-​theatre location. Wine selection is very Greek but pairs well with the menu. The manager makes sure nobody slips through the cracks and you’ll be out to see your show without fuss.

Had a pre-​theater dinner here Wednesday night and it was really delightful. Nice service and food came quickly, which worked for us. I ordered a small Greek salad, grilled chicken wings, and some lamb meatballs in tomato sauce. The salad could have used some more dressing, but it was fresh and good, as was everything we ordered. No complaints about the meal or the prices, recommend — I’d go again.

I’m VERY surprised by the negative reviews here!
Maybe I’ve always been lucky, but I’ve been here twice for lunch and once last week for dinner and always had a great experience.
The dinner was particularly good — we had one of the ‘set’ menus (Peloponnese) for 2 at £29.75. You get 8 dishes and a choice between 2 for each dish. The food was great quality and there was just the right amount of everything to go round. The filo pastry feta parcels and falafel were particular highlights!
Yes it may not be the most ‘authentic’, but the food was lovely, service was great and for the price we paid I left very happy.

Finally, my child’s dream came true! Becoming invisible is possible at MJ Café.
Service is hands down the worst ever.
I wanted to take my girl somewhere nice to eat. For God’s sake, it took half an hour just to get water served on our table.
When 40 minutes later we thought our food was finally ready, they served us the wrong order and we were asked to wait for ‘a while’.
How do they even have clients? Maybe food is good — if you feel like waiting hours to eat.

Stop for early diner and was a great experience. Great food and casual ambiance we will back!

I read a bunch of bad reviews about this place, specially some mentioning that it’s not actual «the real greek». To be really honest I never tasted «real» greek so I didn’t have any specify expectations about this place — my expectations were just that I wanted to eat hummus and also have some known mediterranean dishes. And I had it, plus tasted pretty good in my opinion. For less than 15 pounds per person (2 people), I was able to have a generous meal — with lamb + chicken meat, hummus, couscous, pitta bread and a few more dishes. We ordered the «Peloponnese». The portions had a really good size. Food taste, service and price were pretty good, so for sure I would come back here.

It’s hard to find great tasting authentic Greek food in Central London as the large Greek community here mostly live in North London and that’s where all of the best Greek restaurants are. This is a chain restaurant that offers very commercialised variations of popular Greek dishes.
I’ve been here a few times, never at my suggestion, and whilst I can say the food isn’t bad, it’s not authentic Greek food. It’s like going to Taco Bell with a Mexican; they may eat it, but they’ll keep telling you it’s not real Mexican food.
The Real Greek may be exactly that but the food isn’t. Overall, it doesn’t taste bad, I would just recommend taking a short journey into North London for a more authentic experience.

This was fine for a pre theatre lunch. Tasty hummus, Greek salad, a lamb wrap and bread with oil and spicy ground nuts. All tasty but the venue is small and very busy so we didn’t exactly feel relaxed as the waiter and the lunch crowd kept bumping into our chairs. Mind you the three women next to us dissecting their relationship with their mother kept us entertained… and rather sympathetic towards poor old mum!

There is one thing that London is not short of, it’s authentic Greek restaurants. These are often owned and run by real Greeks.
Greek food is a variety of sea-​food, along with meats such as lamb, pork or chicken. They also do a good range of vegetarian dishes.
The one recurring theme on visiting a Greek restaurant is that you are going to eat lots and lots of food. In fact, your probably going to go home seriously stuffed, and probably a little drunk.
Which brings me to this cute little oddity THE REAL GREEK.
Quite an ostentatious name for a chain of restaurants that don’t seem to have any Greek staff. Still it’s all about the food.
The one in Covent Garden is small, cramped and you have to sit on bar stools.
There were a lot of flies about in the seating area, which made me wonder whether they were also present in the kitchens and food storage areas.
The food was okay, we had octopus, squid, grilled halloumi, pork souvlaki and a greek salad. On top of that we had dessert. All in all, this meal came to £60.
But the real disappointment was that the portions were so small. The seafood portions were tiny, with most of the plate taken up by various pieces of salad and very little fish.
There was just one stick of pork souvlaki. Yes, that’s right, one stick, for £4.95
You can go to pretty much any Greek restaurant in London and order a pork souvlaki, which will come with bread, salad and three skewers of pork for this price. Not so in the Real Greek where you get just one skewer, most of which is veg and a few pieces of pork.
I ordered a lemon cake with ice cream, not exactly a Greek dish but very tasty. My friend ordered a lemon sorbet, which was just a scoop of ice cream in a small glass tumbler. You would get more ice-​cream from a van in the street for 99p.
But all of these complaints pale to insignificance when you consider the real failing of this chain of restaurants. The real shame is the big disappointment of having eaten at a Greek restaurant, paying £60 for the privilege and leaving whilst still hungry. That has never happened to me before.
Be warned, there is nothing «real» about this Greek.

I ate here last night for the first time and really enjoyed it. The place was packed when we arrived around 8.30pm but we only had to wait a few minutes for a table. The staff were friendly and the service was speedy. We opted to share the Anatolian meze and chose flatbreads, hummus, revithia (chick peas), chicken skewers, dolmades, grilled halloumi, salad and rice which were all delicious. With a very nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and a bowl of olives the bill came in at £55 for the two of us not unreasonable considering the area.

They’ve shot themselves in the foot really by calling themselves ‘the real greek’ haven’t they. Because if you’ve ever been near Greece then you’ll know that this isn’t in any way authentic, but if you can get past the chain-​restaurant chic then there’s some good Greek grub to be head here.
As you’d expect there’s meat galore, the lamb we had was spot on, but if you’re a greek restaurant that can’t do lamb then you might as well go home. Food comes ‘mezze’ style i.e. bit by bit at the whim of serving staff, and the portions aren’t huge.
Great for big parties where you dont mind a wait (and your boss is picking up the bill).

Es un restaurante pequeño muy bien situado en Covent Garden. Fui aquí a almorzar un sábado y estaba bastante lleno y apretado. Acabas sentado casi al lado de desconocidos. Los camareros eran bastante lentos y estuvimos esperando más de 10 minutos hasta pedir bebida y comida. En la carta decían que el zumo era ‘freshly squeezed’, que según creo, significa recién exprimido, o al menos exprimido allí. Lo pregunté para asegurarme porque tenían de arándano y me resultaba muy raro. La camarera me dijo que sí, así que lo pedí y por supuesto no lo era. No sé si esto es una confusión por ser española, igual ‘freshly squeezed’ en un restaurante no significa coger la fruta y exprimirla si no abrir un cartón de zumo, mezclarlo con agua e hielo y servirlo. Al menos el vaso era enorme comparado con otros restaurantes de cadena, por £2.95.
Les he puesto 3 estrellas porque la comida estaba muy bien en mi opinión (aunque yo no soy muy exigente, tal vez mi opinión no es muy de fiar en este sentido). Nosotros probamos souvlaki de pollo, anatolian spiced gambas y lamb cutlets (chuletas pequeñas de cordero). El cordero estaba hecho a la plancha con tomillo y limón y me encantó (pero como digo, no soy muy exigente). Los precios son tirando a caros y para pagar tuvimos que esperar otra vez más de 10 minutos.
Con la cantidad de restaurantes que hay en Londres, no creo que vuelva a ir a éste, pero mereció la pena probarlo al menos una vez.

What a big dissapointment. Once and never again.
I am not Greek but I do understand about Mediterranean food (I am Spanish) plus I have been prepared Greek food by Greek people plenty of times. And I can tell that the food in this place is really terrible.
And it was very expensive for what it is.
It was really busy, we were hurried, the service was poor.
What can I say? Terrible. I woud choose no stars if I could.

My visit here last night threw up a real dilemma in terms of whether or not I’d reccommend this place…
On the one hand the service from our waitress was some of the best I’d received in a long time, especially from a chain AND a West End location at that, the location is perfect for pre-​theatre munching, the food service was prompt, they get top marks for having a menu listing coeliac-​friendly foods, the décor was nice and (I was seriously considering how I could fit a light feature like their’s in my lounge), but…
…and it’s a large, BUT, on the other hand the portion sizes for the meze dishes were too small (2 meat skewers per plate please and what’s with the TWO pieces of halloumi for £4.50?) and the meat was over cooked (if you want tender lamb, stick to Gallipoli). There were highlights on the menu — the lamb stifado hot pot and the chocolate mousse cake get thumbs up. But unfortunately, with the overall value scoring so low I’m afraid it has a real detrimental effect on the whole place.
In short, if you can visit with a discount voucher and aren’t bothered about the meat dishes you’re in for a nice meal.

It’s an OK place to dine with friends. Quite expensive and small portions. The place is small, they have stools and the dishes are served on tea stands hahe!!. Very interesting.
We ordered cold meze like Tzatzik (cucumber, garlic and mint), Htipiti (red pepper, onions and feta cheese), Lamb Kefte, Halloumi and Vegetable Souvlaki (very small portion), Santorinian Fishcakes (again small). They were all tasty but the portions very disappointing. Better have a appetizer before going in there or eat after you had a meal.
We had a dessert called Loukoumia (sounds very weird and taste too), please don’t ever try it… not good at all…
Overall food is good but very expensive for that portion.

I pass by this place every day on my way to work and thought I’d give it a try. I’m not sure exactly what it was that made my experience unsatisfactory, but the only thing I enjoyed was the location — it’s only a few minutes from work. The food was plain, service was slow and staff was inexperienced, and seating was uncomfortable (tight squeeze). You couldn’t walk to your table unless you asked the surrounding people from other tables to scoot in.
I know it’s Greek food, but how can you not have tomato sauce with chips? Instead, they offered to charge me more money for dipping sauce? Incredible.

The worst Greek food i have ever had.
Greek food is all about mezze and sharing, but the tables here aren’t even big enough for the plates and glasses, let alone plates of food. You also have to sit on stools which doesn’t really make for a relaxed dining atmosphere.
The white bait was ok, the prawns just plain awful. The souvlaki came wrapped in paper making me feel like i was in a kebab shop.
Some dishes came with 4 ‘bits’, while some came with 2 leading to awkward polite moments of «you have it», «no, it’s ok, you have it», «ok then lets cut it in two». While some plates had 6 bits — it just didn’t make sense.
The toilets here are pretty smelly too.
There’s plenty of other restaurants in the area that are much better, and there’s plenty of other amazing Greek restaurants in London (some even run by Greek people), so this place isn’t really worth a look in.

I went here a few weeks back with friends, and had a very enjoyable experience.
Although you do have to order each food separetly the prices are pretty reasonable so it doesn’t cost much. I had the Kalamari which was £5.75 with a greek salad which wasnt much more… The design of the place is very pretty with sweet little wooden tables that slot into each other like ying yangs. and the food is served on little tea stands!
However if you have lots of shopping with you, the tables are very small so if could be quiet cramped.

The Real Greek is a growing chain boasting a delicious selection of mezedes, freshly char-​grilled souvlaki, salads and sharers. Real Greek, Real Food!
I visited the Covent Garden branch. It is small and all of the tables are close together which is great for ambiance but not so good if you prefer abit more privacy especially like when you sat next to a person on their own who is not wearing headphones :)
The food is certainly tasty but you have to order everything separately ie the souvlaki 5.25 comes in a flat bread wrap, tzatziki and relish but no salad. No problem, I ordered a Greek salad to accompany and it made a great healthy meal.
You can also order from a large selection of small hot and cold mezedes making it nice to mix and match with friends.

The name doesn’t quite fit the place.
Because it’s anything BUT real greek.
The food is different, the décor is completely off (and i don’t expect cute cycladic island white walls, just typical greek taverna style décor) and well
I’m sorry, but I’m greek and in short: I’d never go back. Ever.
The spices they use are exotic, i’m sure, but have nothing at all to do with greek cuisine. It’d be like eating baby back ribs with mango chutney! Blah.
The chairs aren’t very comfortable either, nor is the place spacious.
I suppose it’s better than McDonald’s, but that’s about it