Dover Street Counter Was Packed – So Why Didn’t We Love It?
Dover Street Counter Was Packed – So Why Didn’t We Love It?
Dover Street Counter serves room service energy
Dover Street Counter is rammed when we arrive, which is always a promising sign. Or, at least, it’s usually a sign that you’re about to have a good time. Usually.
I’m here with my sister, which means two things. One, we’re hungry. Two, we’re ready to talk for hours, and food is simply the delicious vehicle for the catching up.
Dover Street Counter describes itself as a laidback neighbourhood restaurant with rebellious energy, and the restaurateur has apparently framed the menu as being inspired by the eclectic mix you might see on a hotel room service menu abroad.
Which is… an interesting ambition.
Quick info on Dover Street Counter
- Restaurant: Dover Street Counter
- Location: Mayfair
- Style: counter dining, casual plates
- Cost: around £35 per person for 2 courses
- Best idea on paper: DSC French dip
- Biggest disappointment: spaghetti all’assassina
- Overall: busy, but not for us
Read the full Dover Street Counter restaurant review below to find out more.
The vibe is right, the food is… confusing
To be fair, Dover Street Counter gets a few things right.
The service is quick and polished. The room has that cool new restaurant sheen. It’s the kind of place you could imagine popping into for a casual dinner after work.
But once the plates start arriving, the excitement begins to drain.
It’s not disastrous – it’s just that too much feels joyless, unfinished, or awkward to eat.
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Purple potato crisps and salsa that are like a background actor
This sounds fun, right? Purple crisps with salsa and lime sour cream. San Marzano tomatoes, no less. On paper, it sounds exactly like the sort of snack you’d want to order.
The reality is more disappointing.
The crisps are mostly tiny pieces, which makes scooping difficult. You keep trying to get a good dip-to-crisp ratio, but it evades you.
The dip is layered. On top, a cream that’s meant to be lime sour cream. Underneath, a cold tomato salad situation. The cream is fine on it’s own, but when we hit the tomato layer the whole thing feels disjointed and less enjoyable.
Also, I don’t taste lime at all. A proper hit of lime might have sharpened the whole thing and made it feel more alive.
Are the disco fries actually worth ordering?
Lunch at Dover Street Counter continues with disco fries. They’re short fries, bitty, and dressed with pickled chilli and ginger, mayo, and something called disco jus.
My sister takes one bite, raises an eyebrow, and says, is it really giving disco?
Her eyes say no, even as she shovels another mouthful in. We do finish them, to be fair, but it’s absent-minded finishing.
So far, this isn’t the kind of food you make a detour for.
They taste pickly. Gingery. Slightly soy-ish. Not bad. Not great.
I tell you what though, if these fries arrived at 12pm after a late night, I might have loved them. At lunch, they don’t sparkle.
DSC French dip is a delicious idea with a truly impractical execution
Moving swiftly on to mains at Dover Street Counter.
We try the DSC French Dip because it sounds so damn good. The Dover Street Counter menu says there’ll be sliced roast beef, beef ragu, taleggio, pickles and jus. A gravy boat for dipping. On paper, it sounds great.
And then the sandwich arrives and it’s so huge and unwieldy that it becomes a logistical problem.
You’re meant to dip the baguette into the jus. But the gravy boat is narrow, and the sandwich is wide, and reality hits hard.
We try to dip and the filling starts tumbling out. The baguette is crunchy, but the crunch works against you because the whole thing needs more pliability to be biteable.
We cut it into smaller pieces, but it’s still not really working as an concept.
Taste wise, I like it. The sandwich is meaty and rich, and the beef has a slightly spiced exterior that reminds me of shawarma-style seasoning. The pickles bring tang. The jus is savoury and comforting.
But eating it is hard work. Especially on a counter, where you’re sat slightly higher and the angle makes the whole dipping operation even more awkward.
I persevere with knife and fork. My sister gives up entirely.
This is one of those dishes that could be great if it were simply smaller, better structured, and easier to eat.
Spaghetti all’assassina (the dish I most wanted to love)
The spaghetti all’assassina at Dover Street Counter is the dish I’m most excited for.
Spaghetti all’assassina is meant to be crunchy pasta in tomato sauce, cooked from raw in a pan with tomato broth added gradually so the pasta fries and blackens in places. Online, it looks filthy in the best way. Charred. Crisp. Addictive.
Dover Street Counter’s version is never quite comes together.
It’s not crunchy enough to satisfy the craving that brings you to this dish in the first place. Parts of the pasta look turgid, a little too thick, a little too soft, and the texture becomes confused rather than thrilling.
Flavour-wise, it’s strangely narrow. First you taste almost nothing, then suddenly you get a slap of chilli that lingers, and that’s basically it. The basil on top contributes very little and feels more decorative, especially because we don’t detect basil in the sauce itself.
And then there are the blackened bits.
Instead of tasting charred and smoky and intentional, they taste burnt. Is that how this is meant to taste? Burnt like the last piece of toast you forgot about.
This version makes the dish seem more appealing online that in real life.
Overall thoughts on lunch at Dover Street Counter Mayfair
We pay about £35 each, which in Mayfair is practically a bargain. And Dover Street Counter is clearly doing something right because it’s busy, it’s buzzing, and plenty of people seem to be having a great time.
But for us, this lunch doesn’t land.
None of the dishes make me want to return. None of them feel like something I’d recommend a friend go out of their way for. And the overall effect is more confusion than satisfaction.
I leave wondering if we ordered wrong. Whether the French dip was always destined to be impractical. Whether the disco fries are just menu word salad designed to draw you in. Whether the assassin spaghetti is simply a concept that doesn’t translate well in restaurants.
We decline dessert firmly.
Dover Street Counter Mayfair might be a fun place for a drink. It might be a place that works better later in the day when you’re less hungry and more in the mood for chaos.
But as a lunch destination, this Dover Street Counter review lands on one word.
Disappointing.
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Dover Street Counter review
Address – 31 Dover St, London W1S 4ND
Nearest Tube – Green Park
