Sofra

Dishes are ok. They taste good — nothing extraordinary — but the plates are very small. Service is also ok — they get a bit lost sometimes but it’s fine most of the time. Being in London for 6 nights now, I would say that you can definitely find something better paying less.

Came here for dinner with a group of 10. We were seated upstairs, which is nice, as there is a windowed roof. Though, it can get pretty dark up there at night.
The service was pretty nice. The server was very patient, and even provided us with extra bottles of water when we ran out.
The food was nice. Their menu tries to be funny, though it’s more awkward, really. At the top it says that if we don’t like/​finish the food, the chef will be made to eat it. Which, in reality doesn’t actually happen, but I think it being written like that makes some people think its serious. Haha
They also can make «custom» food for kids. Since there were children in our group who weren’t interested in the normal menu, they made some chicken tenders for the kids to eat. That was nice.
Overall, not a bad experience.

We had high hopes for this place. We wanted to sit on the much-​touted rooftop deck, but since it was slow that area wasn’t open. We ordered the lamb tagine and the halloumi. The lamb tasted – honestly – like something my Kansas mom would make in her crockpot. Which is to say the meat was tender & flavorful… but not at all what I expected. The halloumi was also ok, but we make it better at home for less. There were a lot of things on the menu that didn’t strike us as necessarily «Turkish» but more sort if pan-​Middle Eastern? That said, the service was quick (again, it was quite slow) and friendly.

I love this place so much I’ve had the owners business card in my wallet for a year. They serve a variety of Turkish dishes and similar menu items. The perfect place to eat before the theater!

We went there to celebrate a special family occasion. It was the worst experience ever!
The waiters threw everything on the table.
ALMOST SPILLED A HOT SOUP ON MY LITTLE BOY’S HEAD!
They kept dropping and breaking glasses.
They were really really rude. And they were stressing everyone out!
I do not recommend anyone to go there if they you are looking for quality service.
Bad bad times.

Soothing atmosphere. I was here with colleagues from work but the crowd was mostly couples and Christmas parties. Not noisy at all. Excellent food, enjoyed the whole experience. Excellent service a very reasonable prices for central London. Looking forward to coming back.

We were pleasantly surprised by Sofra! We stumbled upon this Turkish restaurant after making our way past Covent Garden, looking for something a little less touristy. We didn’t get too far away from the tourist area, but Sofra looked good, so we figured we’d give it a try. We initially thought it might be Greek, because of the colors, but were even happier to discover Turkish fare!
We had the hummus with lamb which was beautifully smooth and salty, the amazingly spiced halloumi which is one of my favorite cheeses, the green broad beans in lebne, and the lamb shank. Everything was delicious, though I wish they hadn’t run out of the vegetarian AND the meat dolmas, I really wanted to try those. They did fortunately serve delicious fresh bread, fluffy whole wheat with a crunchy, sesame-​covered crust that came with a side of hummus. Had I known that before I ordered I might have gotten something different than the lamb hummus, but at least everything was very good.
We’d definitely go back here, a Covent Garden gem!

Amazing special authentic well prepared food. Great for vegetarians. Mezze platter isnt huge but gives an amazing selection. Try the nut salad, labne cheese, hummus, eggplant with pomegranate seeds and many others. Good attentive service. The owner is an attraction by himself.
Highly recommended. I’ll be back.

I decided to go here to try Huseyin Ozer’s innovative take on Turkish Food.
The menu seemed pretty diverse offering a range of different meat dishes as well as a mix of Greek and Moroccan foods.
I ordered dolma (stuffed vine leaves) to start and I wasn’t too impressed with what I got. I guess I’m just used to traditional dolma, totally filled with rice and mince. Ozer’s version was a couple of tiny little things that looked like balls (more than anything) with hardly any filling (that I could taste) in a bowl of gravy. I did not like my starter.
The meze’s we ordered were pretty good: hummus, bread and olives– you can’t go wrong really.
The main was much nicer. I ordered lamb shish with rice and salad while my partner ordered the chicken. We both agreed that the meat was tender and the dish made an altogether yummy main.
The staff were very attentive and polite while not being very chatty which is fine.
Overall I would say the food is OK but I’m not sure if I would go back here…

The best branch of Sofra in my opinion. The food is the same delicious treat that is served through the chain but the dining room is somehow more spacious and comfortable than the other two restaurants in central London. The staff is friendly and the food is amazing, what more can you wish for?

As a tourist visiting London, I stumbled upon this Turkish restaurant for dinner and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the service and quality of food! I ordered the Lamb Tagine and my mother ordered the Meze which included lots of small portions of Turkish delicacies to fill one person up. The lamb was cooked to perfection, falling off the bone, and just purely delicious. The bread and hummus was on point and for dessert I had the Kazandibi which was creamy and delicious. The service was very pleasant. The waiter gave us great recommendations, made conversation with us, constantly gave us more bread and hummus (per request) and when he messed up my dessert order, he offered me to keep the wrong one on the house! It was splendid service and delicious Turkish food on my last night in London.

We were meeting friends after a show near Covent Garden. The food here is wonderful and the service is also great. Our entire group was impressed at the value for money here — good food at a very reasonable price.

Based on one visit:
We had quite a good meal here – weekend lunch in what is admittedly a tourist district. Yummy hummus, good vegetarian options. The service was courteous and attentive without being suffocating (coming off peak hours may have helped). I would give 3.5 stars.

I think I’d give this place just a tad below 3 stars.
This restaurant has an alluring dinner special that includes a drink (wine or beer), hummus and bread, and a main dish for under 10 pounds. However, I thought the food was average.
The hummus and bread was as expected. The beer choices were pretty limited — I think there were only 2 options. I had the moussaka, which didn’t taste anything like other versions I’ve previously tried. It had a weird creamy, gelatinous layer that I couldn’t quite identify. It had an almost TV dinner like taste to it where the whole thing had one flavor even though there were many layers. My boyfriend ordered the chicken kabob, which was much better than my dish. The chicken had a great flavor and was not overcooked. The rice and side salad that accompanied the chicken were slightly subpar.
We had an interesting waiter, who was pretty frantic the whole time and didn’t quite adhere to the speedy service they advertised in their menu (drinks in 3 minutes, starters in 5).
Although I had an okay experience and prices were low, I’m not really inspired to return.

I was very surprised to see those reviews! I actually love this place.
Okay… you probably should not go if you are in a hurry, but that said, they have a wide variety of main courses for 9.70 with a soft drink, which is a very good price for dinner.
All the food is very good and fresh, even if the service is slow. They also have a wide range of vegetarian courses which I like.
The bread with hummus that they serve as a starter is very very good, and all the main courses I have had also! And their desert: the trio of chocolate is so, so good!
I would really recommend this place, the atmosphere is quite romantic as well, so I really really love it

Sofra — the food is actually ok (a couple of niggles, for example, I’d expect tagine to turn up in a tagine, not as two massive hunks of lamb on a plate) but the service was just plain bad.
It wasn’t only slow, but riddled with errors. Our food finally showed up, only to be incorrect. Cue some rather unprofessional bickering between staff. Then further unprofessional requests to not only repeat what we ordered but also to verify that ‘it wasn’t me who took your order, though, was it?’ said in desperation in front of the manager. Frankly I don’t know who it was but being hounded by three seperate people to confirm what was said and to whom means none of you will get a tip.
We did get a complimentary glass of wine as recompense, and the right dishes did turn up, and they filled a hole, as they say. The starter platter was very tasty but not very filling between two, so it’s good the mains portions are reasonable. I’ve had better versions of both things we tried so I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat here, even if we had been served well. The house red is just about passable.
To end the evening, the long wait for the bill culminated in a dish we hadn’t eaten appearing on it (cue more bickering). By this point I was fed up. Perhaps they just have too many staff — there seemed to be loads of them. Whatever, this is a restaurant in the West End and I’d expect better. The décor and some presentations suggests they are aiming to be a high end eatery but they’re falling woefully short right now.

Dreadful service, dull food, conveniently located.
I had the same experience as Uli by the sounds of it — went for a birthday meal and the12 of us were treated very shabbily. I totally agree that the staff were «inattentive, unprofessional and totally bored» and I too «really just wanted to smack them». We were seated for 20mins before menus were distributed and drinks finally offered. They tried to manœuvre us into ordering from the set party menu, despite my having agreed at the time of booking that we would want the regular menu. To be fair, I didn’t have to get too shirty to get them to bring out the regular menus instead, but I disliked the sneakiness.
We were sat in a freezing draft from the air-​con, and it took 3 requests to get it turned down. We were then still freezing due to being sat upstairs under a retractable roof (WARNING: the upstairs is used as a roof garden in warmer months. In the winter, do not let them seat you up there!).
Piles of dirty, gravy smeared plates languished ON THE FLOOR behind the bar, because they were too busy to take them down to the kitchen.
Everyone’s food was very forgettable and I counted five plates with substantial amounts left on them. My bland lamb tagine contained 8 manky neck bones (we had a zoologist at my table). My plate had a vertebrae to meat ratio of 1:1.
I had been here on a weekday evening with colleagues, and I found the atmosphere and décor charming, the service fine and the food below average, but reasonably priced and perfectly edible (I had the House Vegetarian Special). This seems to chime with other reviews here, and is the main reason I spared Sofra the lowest star rating. The lessons are:
DO NOT GO ON A SATURDAY NIGHT
DO NOT PLAN A SPECIAL MEAL HERE
DO NOT SIT UPSTAIRS IN THE WINTER

I go to this place quite often and enjoy my two dishes
chicken skewers and lentil soup – these are perfect
anything else is tricky to order, can’t guarantee taste and presentation
decoration is a bit dated and dining tables are in desperate need for maintenance
other branches are fine– it is just the Covent Garden restaurant that needs a refurbishment
this place will always be a place to go and have a decent meal when not in the mood for trying out new places

I think I’ve just had one of the worst dinner experiences in a long time…
I went to Sofra for a birthday dinner and first of all they kind of forced us to order the 20.95 three course meal because otherwise it would be too complicated to take orders… such a bullshit! But this is tourist central and I guess they just get away with it.
The meze starters were actually quite tasty, but my main disch (lamb tajine) was just awful. The plate itself was huge and the food kind of looked lost on it: there was the piece of meat, three potato halves, and a pile of rice… oh I forgot the few almonds (I think that’s what it was) sprinkled over it… Further, the food of some of us was only luke warm…
The worst though was the service… bad waiting staff that was so inattentive, unprofessional and totally bored that I really just wanted to smack them…(maybe in the future I should write my reviews not immediately after a bad dinner experience and cool down a little).
Anyway, I might have just come on a wrong day… but I ain’t gonna come back here to give it another try.

The menu states ‘Drink in 2 mins, starter in 5mins. This place is designed to service the theatre going tourists. Now the place isn’t bad at all, it is actual quite impressive and remarkably quaint. Yet I cannot help feel there is an element of style over substances. The food options are extensive and reasonably priced. After 6pm you can get tasty bread, hummus and olives as a starter and a choice of main from an impressive list for £9.95. It is £7.95 before 6pm. Regular mains average out at £13.00.
The atmosphere is nice, the service basic but prompt and if you are in a rush, they are indeed quick. This is a 3.5* venue. It did not wow me, with there good, clean and well presented food and shiny décor, but I would still be happy to recommend them.