Eat around the world in W12

James Wallman looks at Westfield’s culinary offerings and discovers whether eating in a shopping mall can be a pleasant dining experience and not just a refuelling pit-stop

Westfield’s marketing blurb proudly tells us we can now eat around the world without leaving west London. Truth be told, we could do that before. So are the eateries only for out-of-towners on a shopping trip – or are they for us locals too?

Mostly, no, as you’d expect. But there are some yeses. One is Waitrose’s hot chocolate with marshmallows. “So yummy,” according to the wife.

The biggest problem with the restaurants here isn’t the food, the Ersatz décor or the suburban shoppers who look like they’re setting up camp as they sit down. It’s the prices – which are invariably high and often aren’t matched by authenticity or quality.

Take The Real Greek. The original in Hoxton serves dolmades and bifteki as good as you’d have in Syntagma Square in Athens. But – and you can hear this coming can’t you? – the one in Westfield feels about as Greek as Glasgow.

Then there’s Del Aziz, a sort of real-fake deli-restaurant. It’s quite cute. You sit on big blocks of wood and eat really quite good Mediterranean food, such as Israeli couscous, Moroccan meatballs and, er, Persian chicken kebab. And there’s even a whiff of rose water in the toilets. It would be a great airport restaurant. Its only downside is it’s a bit overpriced.

Ito from ‘gastropreneur’ Tom Etridge is an odd one. For the first few months no-one went in, confused because its name was Japanese but the sign says it’s a brasserie.
“Ito is an Italian diminutive,” the waiter explained to my father and me when we went for lunch. “We serve a French-Italian version of tapas.”
Ah, a European version of pan-Asian, then. Euro-pan, perhaps? We had wild boar and Chimay sausages and a spiced duck salad – which were both really good. But the portions were too small, and sadly, I came out feeling more out of pocket than seemed right.

Almost next door, Tibits looks like an upscale motorway cafe, and serves pay-as-it-weighs veggie food which you pick from an all-day buffet.

Now onto the really good stuff. Wagamama and Gourmet Burger Kitchen are as predictably good as you’d expect. But Wahaca, sister to the award-winning Mexican street food restaurant in Covent Garden, is the best restaurant on Westfield’s Southern Terrace.

Despite a few Lego-like touches in the design, it feels like a real restaurant that happens to be in a shopping centre, rather than a shopping-centre restaurant. The waiters and waitresses act like they care and the food, from the mackerel tostadas to the black bean and mozzarella quesadillas, is fresh and so good I’ve been there five times in a month.

I can’t yet bring myself to eat in Italia Kitchen with its predictable pastas. Or Fire and Stone, which serves pizzas adorned with coconut curry, Hoi Sin and rosemary-infused mascarpone cheese sauces – though, thankfully, not at the same time. Worse still are its head-height, caged-in, fake flames billowing outside. Ouch.

All the ones I’ve considered are accessible from the outside, on the south-facing Southern Terrace. There are another 30-odd places inside. But you don’t want to eat there, do you? That really would be eating in a shopping centre, and who wants to do that?