Tasting menu restaurants are an experience. They create a menu that takes you on a journey via staging, calibration, seasonality, pairing. The staff are prepared and well-versed on the courses, and create a sense of ease and harmony within the space. SBN models themselves more on a Chinese buffet template rather than the tried-and-tested Michelin one, churning out the numbers as quickly as possible to customers elbow-to-elbow. Eavesdropping fellow diners conversations can be a fun distraction. Becoming acquainted with their skincare routines is not.Every element about Six by Nico screams an early-noughties red-brick catering college final exam dinner. Like their budget-bursting marketing ads, they’re all surface and zero substance, cynically targeting the social media-obsessed generations that cherish photos of food over the food itself. Entry-level “high cuisine” for the seriously oblivious masses. Vacuousness personified. And just like a recent graduate - there is an absence of maturity, experience and calibration. It is all gimmickry, neediness and show. There is no consideration or calibration in the courses. Salt upon salt upon salt. None of the courses compliment the next, nothing to cleanse the palate and break flavour profiles. Just the pervasive, lingering accumulation of salt. Matching the disharmonious food, the clearly NMW staff bellow out the courses disinterestedly and obviously tired by the rotations. Over-working has pulled the effort for charm right out of them. Out of curiosity, when questioned about the produce and provenance - a dull expression is unsurprisingly the resounding answer. We enquired about a drinks flight menu and in turn a drinks menu was produced. Suggestions for pairings were requested and we got to see that now familiar dull expression all over again. High turnover = high profit margins. But using a tasting menu template without any consideration for refinement results in a poor experience. Six By Nico is a beef bourguignon TV dinner - an attempt at fine dining for the budget-based masses. It’s a Soundcloud cover band version of a song you really liked but can’t access. It is a catering college open evening dinner where they try to pass off a quenelle of corner shop vanilla ice cream as their own. It is a paradigm of the vacuous self-promotion and superficiality that pervades contemporary experiences perpetuated by online life, and for that, I congratulate them on cashing in off it. Soulless, uninspired, affordable. A lot like Primark. For point of reference to West End dining, they are doing great things at No.16, The Gannet, Gloriosa, Eighty Eight, Five March, and CB (if you can get a reservation!)
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