Jeremy Lee is the esteemed Chef Proprietor of Quo Vadis in Soho, London, known for his distinctive modern British cooking. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed cookbook 'COOKING, Simply & Well x for one...
Quo Vadis is a historic Soho restaurant and private members' club in London, known for its colourful past, including being a former brothel and a home to Karl Marx. It offers an enchanting dining room with stained glass windows and a timeless allure, appealing to discerning diners seeking quality food and service in an intimate setting.
Customers generally praise Quo Vadis for its stunning food quality, excellent service, and wonderful ambiance, often describing it as an 'unmitigated perfection' and a place with a 'lovely vibe'. The cocktail menu is also highly regarded. Some negative feedback, however, points to occasional issues with inattentive or rushed service, and isolated incidents like finding hair in food.
Additional Details
The building has a rich history, having been a brothel and a residence for Karl Marx. It operates as both a public restaurant and a private members' club.
The restaurant is suitable for lunch and dinner, with a popular Theatre Set menu available all day. It's often described as an intimate setting, suggesting it's good for evenings.
Awards & Recognition
Time Out mention/recognition
5
What an amazing experience! A fantastic place, so much history, home to Marx for several years etc, and beautifully set up. A place of real character. Lovely to see an eclectic mix of diners, some talking, quietly, some reading, so much character! We’d pre ordered a book and would have been able to get it signed if we’d have arrived on day we’d reserved- we had to postpone but team very understanding and simply changed to next day!
My parents had been before and didn’t exaggerate about the lovely vibe and flawless food and service. The entire team dedicated , Crystal took great care of us. The rustic bread was an appropriate prelude to our mains: the portion size for Ravioli was perfect. It can be off putting when you’re faced with a pile of food! This was delicate, tasty and perfect to allow for the profiteroles 😮 absolutely delicious- we really couldn’t fault any aspect of our experience. The restaurant was busy but this didn’t detract from service.
Having the ability to preorder a book for chef to sign is great, completely our fault that we missed chef as we changed booking. But, it will be our’s one way of another: we may have to make a return visit, or the team will forward it! We’ll be back, no doubt!
Thanks to all, Crystal in particular.
Absolutely stunning experience: so pleased I elected to purchase Chef Jeremy’s book, when reserving the table. The personal inscriptions are wonderful and so thoughtful. Having the great man himself there (so synonymous with being a high profile judge on “Great British menu” interacting so naturally and humbly with patrons is testament to his character: he’s also got a fantastic sense of humour!
History of building fascinating (home of Karl Marx) and several of the original features remain.
This is a place for the discerning diner! Unmitigated perfection in terms of quality of food and service. Team all great and lovely “vibe” A real highlight of our stay in London. Additional thanks to Leah and GG 😊
Photos on TA review
Stylish, sexy, sensational food.
QV is a stalwart in Soho for good reason. It exudes style, is cool AF and has consistently great food and drink.
The menus change and always offer its eponymous eel sandwich. Cocktails are strong but good… particularly its Martini Wednesday.
Decor is subtle yet distinctive. I love its illustrated menus and icon owner flouncing around the joint.
I always recommend this as a place to visit. Having recently seen the members space, even more so. Love💗
Been looking forward to coming here for a while because I frequent Soho a lot and have heard great things about Quo Vadis so I brought my partner, but the experience just really disappointed me. For context we did arrive about 8 mins late for the booking, had starters and our main, and during the main we were told they had to turn our table for a party of 6. In the industry i understand keeping time but interrupting our dinner mid-chew just really ruined the experience - generally I would wait for someone to finish what they’re eating before doing something. And to make things worse when they moved our plates with food to upstairs I then found a hair in my food.
All respect and appreciation, however, to our server (or manager?) David, who was very apologetic and considerate and dealt with my complaint very well to soften the blow.
Interesting opinions about the adorable place. Some highs and a few lows. Here in mid October/25 for a 60th bday. We were recommended to go be a Michelin star chef friend.
Started out great, lovely and adorable server, really good selection of mocktails (only for me) the apps were really good.
Mains had a couple of standout items, the ‘pie’ was excellent and the beef tongue was wonderful. The partridge was ‘ok’, but, it’s a tricky bird to cook. The short ribs were lovely, rich and tender and the dish also quite good. So, here’s the not so good.
Service was unattentive, slow and honestly…odd.
At one point, our server (the adorable one) put his coat on and went through the front of the establishment (we had front window seating) and left for 20 min!!! We were shocked! And no one came to check on us for 15 min! We finally flagged down a different server to be able to place our dessert orders. We have never had anything like that happen! Our server came back in just as we were retrieving out coats. Very odd, and no explanation was offered.
Would I go back, maybe, but with so many great offerings in London…..probably not
