In a city where ambitious restaurant concepts appear almost weekly, The Shaston Arms in London’s W1 district sets out to blur the line between pub, dining room and performance space. The Guardian’s latest review of this Soho newcomer, pointedly titled “Just because you can do things doesn’t mean you should do them,” suggests that its reach may exceed its grasp. As the venue piles on theatrical flourishes, experimental dishes and an elaborate narrative of reinvention, the question is whether any of it actually makes for a satisfying meal – or simply underlines the perils of trying to be everything at once in London’s hyper-competitive food scene.
Concept overload at the Shaston Arms when creative ambition drowns out coherence
Somewhere between the fourth garnish and the fifth backstory, the evening slips its moorings.Dishes arrive like entries in a culinary manifesto, each demanding attention, context and, ideally, a briefing document. A prawn toast that’s been deconstructed,reconstructed and then torched tableside shares space with a bao that insists it is,in fact,a Yorkshire pudding in disguise. The room buzzes, but so does the menu, an overstuffed collage of references that reads less like dinner and more like a mood board. By the time the server has finished explaining what’s been foraged,fermented or “playfully reimagined”,the food is cooling and the joke is starting to wilt.
It’s not that the ideas are bad; it’s that there are too many of them, all shouting at once. The kitchen leans on spectacle as if afraid of silence,juggling influences from east London wine bars,Tokyo izakayas and New Nordic cabins,sometimes on the same plate. You find yourself longing for the grounding comfort of a single, clear thought:
- A dish that doesn’t need a monologue before the first bite
- A menu edited with a red pen instead of a highlighter
- A focus on flavor first, concept second
- A signature plate that actually defines the place
| Course | Concept | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | Three cuisines, one plate | Busy but forgettable |
| Main | Retro pub, modernist twist | All idea, little comfort |
| Dessert | Interactive “experience” | Instagram wins, palate loses |
From pub comfort to theatrical excess how the menu loses sight of what works
The kitchen’s best moments are the ones that feel as if they’ve been lifted straight from a backstreet boozer and given a light polish: a properly buttered pie crust, sausages that snap, chips that remember they were once potatoes. Then,mid-meal,the room tilts from cosy familiarity into a sort of culinary panto. Plates arrive flanked by foams, scattered with micro-herbs and punctuated by chef-y squiggles that say more about ambition than appetite. It’s as though a simple plate of ham, egg and chips put on a feathered headdress and decided to audition for the West End.
- Comfort done right: hot, salty, unfussy
- Theatrics overplayed: towers, smears, dehydrated “surprises”
- Result: the honest cooking drowns in its own costume drama
| Dish Type | When It Works | When It Doesn’t |
|---|---|---|
| Pub classic | Kept simple, seasoned properly | Pulled apart and reassembled as a “concept” |
| Sharing plate | One bold flavour, clear purpose | Too many elements fighting for attention |
| Dessert | Warm, nostalgic pudding | Dry sponge under a sugar sculpture |
Service, pacing and atmosphere when the experience tries too hard to impress
The mood in the room has the slightly anxious hum of a venue that wants you to know it has thought of everything, all at once.Hosts materialise with the fervour of stage managers, adjusting cutlery, refolding napkins and delivering miniature palate-cleansers that nobody asked for. The result is less seamless hospitality, more fussy micromanagement. A simple request for water somehow triggers a three-part questionnaire – still, sparkling or filtered; chilled or room temperature; tap “but in the carafe we had specially blown in Venice”. Lights dim and then flare on again as if the room can’t decide whether it’s hosting a supper club or an optician’s exam.
Across the evening, the rhythm of service feels like a director’s cut of dinner, with no scene left on the editing-room floor. Dishes are preambled with monologues, plates are whisked away the moment your fork lands, and there is always someone hovering a little too close, waiting to explain the provenance of the garnish. Instead of easing into the night, you find yourself navigating a sequence of curated moments:
- Over-scripted dish descriptions that outlast the food itself
- Intrusive topping-up that breaks conversation mid-sentence
- Ambient playlist shifts so abrupt they feel like scene changes
| What’s on offer | How it lands |
| Suit-jacketed servers at every turn | Attentive to the point of surveillance |
| Elaborate table-side rituals | Choreography overshadowing comfort |
| Constant sensory tweaks | Atmosphere that never quite relaxes |
Who should actually book a table specific dishes to order and avoid
If you’re the sort of Londoner who still romanticises the after-work pint and a bag of crisps, this is your kind of detour – provided you’re curious enough to see what happens when pub grub gets ideas above its station. It suits small groups who like to dissect a menu as much as they do the news cycle, and couples happy to graze, compare plates and quietly decide which experiments should never be repeated. Walk in expecting a pub that occasionally remembers it’s also a restaurant, not a full-bore gastronomic pilgrimage, and you’ll be fine. Those who demand reverence with every course, or who equate “sharing plates” with culinary foreplay, may want to steer elsewhere.
- Order: the sturdier, less fussed-about dishes – think anything grilled, roasted or fried with minimal garnish.
- Skip: over-cheffed curios with four adjectives before the noun, or anything that sounds like a dare rather than dinner.
- Order: sides that echo pub classics – potatoes, greens, simple salads with sharp dressings.
- Skip: dessert experiments that read like a brainstorm rather than a finished thought.
| Leaning In | Leaning Out |
|---|---|
| Well-poured pints with salty snacks | Cocktails trying too hard to impress |
| One or two confident “anchor” mains | A full tasting odyssey across the menu |
| Sharing plates for a curious,patient crowd | Big groups chasing flawless,fast service |
in summary
The Shaston Arms feels less like a confident statement and more like an experiment in what a London dining room can be pushed to do – and to charge – without quite falling apart. There are flashes of real talent, a clear desire to entertain and a room that knows how to dress for the occasion. But the restless concept, the self-conscious cleverness and the misjudged flourishes leave you wondering who, exactly, this is all for.
London is full of places that prove you can serve thoughtful food, pour good drink and still remember that hospitality is about putting guests at ease, not on trial. The Shaston Arms, for all its ambition, too frequently enough feels like it’s testing boundaries simply as it can. And as this curious, over-caffeinated corner of W1 reminds us, just because a restaurant can do something, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it should.
