Temper Covent Garden

Meat was dry and cold, although good drinks and service, though not enough to make up for the poor quality and over priced food

Having been to Temper CG several times previously, I was excited to take a visitor there for their birthday. The menu had unfortunately been completely revamped the week prior and it was extremely disappointing.
Overpriced steaks with little to no flavour, tasteless appetisers.
The restaurant has lost its identity. Mexican style appetisers, weird flatbreads for mains as well as 3 varieties of 500g steaks which we were told come medium rare with no chance to request otherwise.
Overall we were very disappointed and won’t be returning.

A wholly average experience. The dining room was well laid out, but fairly empty, which for 7pm was a bit of a surprise. I'd been to the Temper in Soho a couple of times and had a great experience, but this restaurant seems to have missed the mark. The menu was very limited, which i'm usually not that worried about, but it seemed to be missing substance. One of the group was vegetarian and the options were really limited; being one starter and one main, both of which were based on the same Mole sauce. Service was shaky and the steaks we ordered were served on a thin metal plate, which was cold within a couple of mins; fries on the side felt like they'd been left out for a while under a heat lamp before getting to the table. Not great and won't be going back.

The service was really slow. We were waiting 45 mins until we even got asked for a drink

Overall I liked Temper Covent Garden. The ambience is fun and trendy and buzzing. But precisely because it is so trendy, the service is spotty. Some of the drinks took a long time to arrive, as did some of the food. Then oddly the tacos arrived super quick and all at once. The main dish (goat carnitas) arrived cold...we were sitting close to the plating section of the kitchen and we noticed that a lot of the main dishes were just sitting around, so other diners probably received it cold too. However, despite those hiccups, I would still go back but I would stick to the tacos and maybe go during the week rather than on a Saturday night.

The starters were perfectly tasty however they took a while to arrive. We ordered a rib eye steak as one of the mains which arrived well before all the other mains so was cold when we came to eat it. At £37 a steak this isn’t acceptable. 2 of the sides were missed and we had to ask for them to be brought - this took 10 minutes.
The biggest disappointment was the service. When our mains arrived, the starter plates hadn’t been cleared so we had to stack the plates at the end of the table, like it was a school dinner. As well as it being slow (our wine came after the starters, and we followed up 3 times) the waitress overseeing our table was rude. Her attitude was poor, and it felt like she was doing us a favour any time we asked for anything. There was no apology for delayed arrivals or missed orders. She was clearly very stressed, and was seen having a fraught conversation with the manager (our table was next to the till) but this attitude should not have been conveyed to us.
We were especially disappointed as it was for the 21st birthday of one of our party.
We will definitely not return.

There were only 2 main course left even though we went there with booking.

Asked for 2 medium to well steak 1 of them came rare with fully blood.

Concept of food serving;
If you order steak that’s all you got :) no chips or salad. I don’t even think it was a steak knife I am given

You can’t say no to waitress she gets upset :) but she was ok overall

I won’t go again even though steak was delicious

Great atmosphere and delicious food

I was expecting a lot more from our meal. We were seated downstairs, where the ambiance is stale and the service is somewhat of an afterthought. It is almost like the forgotten part of the restaurant that was created because they simply needed more seats. The food, which is most important, was bland and rather expensive. The steaks were underseasoned and the tacos / nachos were nothing special. Overall it was a disappointing meal.

Over priced. Attempting to compete with the likes of Hawskmoor or Gaucho but not even in the same league.
One of 4 steaks was returned as the medium rare was served with nothing more than mild sunburn, a good vet could have revived it.
Serving staff had limited knowledge of the menu.
Cocktails were good. Manager discounted bill appropriately

Read good reviews about the Soho branch of this restaurant in the FT and Guardian couldn’t believe how disappointing the food was.
The place was quite empty on a Sunday evening so can’t talk much about the ambiance but it was the food we came for and let’s just say we shan’t come back for more.

Fabulous tacos - great selection. Each serving is two small corn tacos. Tried goat, goat’s cheese, fish, octopus, soft shell crab and mushroom. Mushroom flatbread also spectacular.
Excellent cannoli - honey and crunch nut. Then the incredible Nutella cookie, baked with peanut butter ice cream. Couldn’t taste the Nutella but still delicious.

Experience was good and the food was good quality. Service was great too. The Nutella cookie dessert was amazing.

Love this place - food amazing and service always brilliant and friendly

food is usually very good but today it all felt very rushed, despite a 45 minute wait for food whilst the restaurant was half full. the Detroit square pizzas were the star of the show so a little sad to seem them being taken off the menu, although with that said they were certainly not at their best again due to long wait/rushed staff, the pizza base was undercooked and the dish became quite underwhelming, a shame to have this as a last memory of what was my favourite pizza in London.
service was slow, seemingly nothing we could do to get our waiters attention, even whilst staring at him for 5 minutes. when the order was finally taken, it was not put through the system, we were told 20 minutes later and then had to wait another 30 minutes for our food.

ive been in 4 or 5 times now and always have a good time, but feel that the standard has dropped across food quality and service, i cant see myself recommending to a friend as i once would have.

chris

Was very quiet but we went at Six on a Friday pre theatre. Lacked atmosphere

The food tries too hard, what should be a delicious lamb and flatbread dish was bland and boring and for the price, small. The pizza with crab, don't bother going there - the flavour didn't work, and we got bored eating it after a while, as once again it was bland. Disappointing, although the vibe seemed promising. They need to rethink and simplify their flavours.

I have been 4 times to covent garden now, always have a good time and the food is great. I took my sister and her husband on Saturday and the only thing that let it down was the speed of drinks service. We ordered white a few cocktails and each time they took 20 minutes or so to come.

Fish tacos were amazing. Polenta was outstanding. Loved the flavours.

A last minute early evening Tuesday treat. Very tasty food, two starters, two mains and a side - not that filling but good service and very tasty.

It was ok but to be honest I was a bit disappointed given the rave reviews of the Soho branch. Service was very nice and the fit of the restaurant is lovely with the kitchen in the middle. Unfortunately the food mostly didn’t live up to the hype for us. The cheeseburger tacos were a bit bland but the goat was delicious. Everything seemed like it had masses of raw onion on it, and too much going on in general so you couldn’t appreciate the meat. The ox cheek came with a great big inedible lemon half taking up a quarter of the bread. It was just all a bit style over substance, and really overpriced.

Really enjoyed it (although migbt just share a pizza next time). Deep dish deliciousness!

Superb evening with a top host making plenty of recommendations, which certainly made for an enjoyable evening out. Personal favourite would recommend the crab tacos, lamb flatbread and porterhouse steak to share accompanied by a cheeky monkey 47 gin!...Music was old school 80s and made more of an upbeat feel in the restaurant...only slight negative would be positioned by the door so had the occasional wind chill blast as customers came and went but very minor groan as didn't dampen the experience. Overall I would highly recommend a night out at Temper as you won't regret it!

Tapas with a twist. The meat was wonderful and the courgette was great (still not sure how it was cooked). Staff were friendly. We will definitely be back to try some more.

The whole experience was amazing! The food was tasty, service was brilliant as was the atmosphere. Overall, I'd definitely recommend it - best meal we've had in ages!

Small portions for food, and so a little pricey as you need quite a few dishes!

Food was really really good and so was the service.
The only things we didn’t found as good was that we ordered 2 starters with 2 cocktails and 2 mains meal with wine, we received everything at the same time unfortunately our mains was a little cold when we finished the starters ...

Excellent food on a quiet Sunday night! You have to try the beef cheek tacos and the cheeseburger pizza!! Friendly staff and nice vibe.

Excellent food. Service patchy, one excellent, one less so. But I would go back.

Great fun, good engaging service. However I do agree that the food is quite expensive for what it is. It is very nice but could do with coming down a little.

Great atmosphere

Food was very average and service was appalling. Ordered White Wine, got red. Food was just thrown on table.

Great venue but terribly mediocre food!

Waiters had very little idea on how to cater for a gluten-intolerant customer. Nice food (except for the aubergine taco dish which my friend described as 'mush') but too expensive for the small size. Great ambience though - we really wanted to like this restaurant but it didn't quite meet our expectations.

Very expensive for the portion you get. Having eaten at Temper City these portions seem much smaller. The flatbread is priced like a main but is absolutely tiny, it's barely bigger than the tacos.

Great food, excellent service! Will definitely recommend

Has gone downhill - service isn't great and food is average at best. Over priced for what it is.

Absolutely lovely meet & greet man who made the experience.

Otherwise food was a bit average for the price, and table service slack.

Loved the atmosphere and excellent menu, great variety.

Interesting concept, dedicated people, loud Music if you are 50😆

A group of us had dinner at Temper in Covent Garden the other day. I was a bit disappointed overall and wish I had booked the Soho restaurant which just looks like a lot more fun. The food was ok – some nice flavours, but really nothing remarkable and some of it was even a bit on the cold side when it arrived. My biggest gripe was the service – I had one of those evenings where I was constantly looking for a waiter as we kept running out of wine! It really shouldn't be that hard to spend money in these places. We still had a good time overall – largely because of the company – but the atmosphere downstairs here is zero, no effort had been made to make the restaurant Christmassy and, again, the service was consistently poor.