Electric Brasserie, Notting Hill, London

The brasserie isn’t itself a private club, not that you can tell from the attitude of some of the staff, though the ‘House’ upstairs is. An intermittently appealing spot for mid-week coffee and brunch, it’s a ‘destination’ for the wrong reasons on market days.

The venue is looking a little tatty around the edges now. Battered zinc tables and dark wood stretch down the side of a long open bar and kitchen, opening up into a wider dining space at the back like a calm pool behind the frenetic waterfall. We were booked into the front though ‘bumped’ to the backroom following a whispered argument about a 20 minute wait from the party queuing in front of us. On a weekday this would be annoying, out of sight is out of mind to the whirling wait staff. On a Saturday, the chaos front of house means a back table is preferable. A snake of expectant hipsters rubberneck at your plates as they wait at the front desk, always in the way of the dfsgrgaergasergsaerg

The brunch menu is full of solid fare; full English and Vegetarian breakfasts with varying combinations, muffins, bacon and eggs in numerous combinations. As well as the obvious dishes, there are a fair few favourites from the full menu including fish or steak and chips and their passable fish pie. Avocado and poached egg on granary toast is a game choice, more avocado than anything else, but a relatively healthy way to cure a hangover. The Eggs Royale were a little disappointing despite their initial visual promise. Beautiful golden yolked eggs served atop a mountain of salmon with hollandaise sauce coating and dripping onto the muffin below. The ingredients were faultless, but with one egg virtually hard boiled and the other’s unset albumen having barely been cooked, it was clear that the eye for detail wasn’t covering all of the dishes to leave the kitchen.

It’s tough to damn somewhere for one undercooked egg, and I’m not going to. I’ve had some wonderfully relaxing breakfasts sat at the front of the Brasserie and a couple of reasonable lunches too, I’d just recommend avoiding it at the weekend and leave it to the tourists. If you are in the area on a weekend, it’s well worth a wander down to the unfashionable end of the market to the lower reaches of Golbourne Road to the street food stalls and the wonderful pastries at the Lisboa Patisserie. It’s one of several tiny Portuguese bakeries and cafes along the road and (relatively) untouched by the encroaching gentrification. Their pastel de nata are small egg custard gems, well worth the trip for a half dozen to take away and a much tastier egg than you’ll find elsewhere.

really great place for brunch in notting hill. does veggie breakfast, eggs florentine, pancakes etc etc. book!

Good ambiance but unfortunately, it has gone downhill. Seating in the back is cramped and food is not as good as it once was. Pancakes were almost inedible on our last visit. Bloody marys still top notch. This is a place where I have fond memories, but would not bring guests there again. Go to Automat in Mayfair for a similar vibe with much better food and more attentive staff.

Downstairs

Excellent food, brilliant service, great value. A cool place to hang out and meet your friends in Portobello, no membership required.

The Electric Members Club Upstairs

A West London institution. It doesn't pretend to be anything it's not. So you get non-flashy interiors in an understated, mildy bohemian way. The usual suspects are invariably augmented by a famous face and sometimes many very famous faces. Locals and media moguls happily mix with production wannabes eager to make some project or other work. In the meantime the food is cooked to a consistently high standard and the drinks are mixed with real panache. The service is always very good....but do check your bill. Many a Sunday morning I've been rescued by the best Bloody Mary in W11. The founder Nick Jones has always been on the button and his awareness of the changing demographic...namely the baby boomers come of age that want to hang out and do whatever while their sprogs are in tow was genius. The free Saturday morning cinema for members' kids justifies the yearly fee many times over. If you're a somebody or an anybody wanting to be a somebody, residing in West London, membership is mandatory.

My boyfriend and I went here on Friday night to review it for my website.

We sat outside (only had to wait 15 minutes which was amazing considering how fantastic the weather was!) and enjoyed the most delicious food, fantastic service and brilliant people watching!

The food was pretty good value considering the area. We have tasty seasonal food and the portions were generous - which again is not something you'd necessarily expect in Notting Hill.

I can't stress enough how great the service was. It really transformed our meal from a good meal to a great meal!

Thank you to all the staff at the Electric for a fantastic evening.

Great simple food and perfect service.
I love it that it's the kind of place where you can wear high heels and sip champagne while you wait for your burger.

yummy yummy yummy. i do love a nice lunch at the electric… go on a sunday, the best atmosphere

very good burger. ask it to be rear so you have it medium. great anyway/

I don’t know about you but I loathe multiplex cinemas. There’s the interminable queueing..first for your ticket..then for some synthetic, 'convenience’, chemical-laden, nutrient-free so-called food that you wouldn’t feed to your dog in normal circumstances. And why is it that you have to buy a bag of 400 maltesers, rather than the usual size packet? Oh and pay £6 for it?

So compared to the above, a visit to the Electric Cinema, which adjoins its sister eaterie,the Electric Brasserie, is refreshing.

When I visited the other night, my friend and I were able to settle down to a pretty good meal of chicken and leek pie and mash followed by melt-in-the-mouth mango sorbet.

It’s a pretty noisy place on a saturday night, with the din of drinkers at the bar and cacophanous open kitchen to contend with, but definitely buzzing.

We got the bill and then one of the lovely managers, Mike, offered to go and pick up our tickets and escort us through the back of the brasserie directly into the cinema’s auditorium. So civilised…and not a tortilla in sight.

Excellent food and good service. However I usually go there for full English breakfast around 08:30 on a Saturday or Sunday. The full English breakfast is full, fresh juice is lovely and the coffee is moving! Its on one of my favourite stretches of Portobello and remember what it looked like when Electric was derelict. Huge improvement, maybe I should try it at some other time of day but I love it in there when its totally empty…

This is the perfect place to go if you want a treat, it’s not cheap but it’s great food in a gorgeous place and service is good. For breakfast you can either turn up and sit at the front, or you can book the back area of the restaurant which I would recommend - it’s more spacious and calmer. They do everything from cooked english to pancakes and maple syrup, eggs benedict, fruit salad and crumpets with nutella. With Portobello Road market right outside it’s a great place to go for brunch on the weekend before you check out the market and surrounding area of Notting Hill and Westbourne Grove.

Poor service which only improved when the rude, surly, waiter with attitude went off duty. Food was good, but not better than a lot of other London restaurants. Overrated, pretentious restaurant which needs to employ people who enjoy waiting tables and not wishing they were doing something in their minds 'better’. Will be passing on my thoughts to others as much as possible.

Apart from the area’s best and most exciting cinema, The Electric also comprises a private members club and an excellent bar/restaurant.
Having popped in for breakfasts and snacks so many times, I had almost forgotten just how excellent a place for dinner The Electric is.
Following the previous night’s disappointment at Tibits, last night’s dinner at The Electric made up and left a good impression of British cuisine on my friends.
We had a lovely, attentive waiter and chose a selection of lovely foods. I shared some excellent merquez with yoghurt/mint dip and had the most delicious chicken & leek pie. So much succulent meat and seasoned with tarragon, my favourite herb.
Everything else looked great - happy faces and round bellies all round.
Really glad to see a place this popular for people watching also really delivering on the food.

I would give it more stars, as the food was lovely, but I have to agree with CaribQueen on the service. We were reminded, repeatedly, throughout our meal that they’d need the table returned at precisely 2:30pm. I realize this is common practice in London (or so I hear) but it’s considered very rude in the States to give an end time to your meal, unless an exception has been made for your reservation time. And to deliver it repeatedly felt very rude, when we were only five minutes off our time.

Still, the mussels were very good, as was the house red wine and the salad. The atmosphere was lively and… err… electric, so very much enjoyed being a part of the community for a short while. Would return, during an off-peak hour…

Heard about the great brunch at this Notting Hill brasserie through word-of-mouth and it more than lived up to expectations.. at least the food did. Had a great eggs florentine and the burgers looked nice and juicy, so much so that I actually debated straying from my usual standbys of benedict or french toast.

The service, however, left a lot to be desired. Our server seemed disgruntled from the get-go and I found it a bit disappointing given that the food was great (well worth the wait to get a table and the longer wait for it to finally arrive). Ever had a server come to your table to pour water or bring food or what have you and simply not look at anyone or say a word and walk away? He barely spoke a word to us the entire time. I found it quite brutish and disliked that the service charge was included… which of course is the very reason this guy probably didn’t smile at a single customer all day.