K2

[Simon]

We went yesterday evening.

Gold flocked wallpaper, a bar in the corner with green lights around it, and various stabs at Art Deco which have probably left it bleeding and mortally wounded on the floor out back. When the couple at a nearby table started drinking Mateus Rose I half suspected they were making some kind of satirical statement about the 70s retro-decor.

The toilet is a trauma. I had to slam it a few times to shut it and then it had no lock. With both the door and the toilet paper dispenser on the same side there were times when it was necessary to leave myself exposed to some halfwit walking in on me while I was wiping my bum.

The restaurant is all hard surfaces, including the floor which has no carpet. So, there is a cacophony of voices so unpleasant that I couldn't hear Jen, who was sitting opposite me, for most of the meal. The answer to this is not to ratchet the jazz up even louder to compete with people's reverberating conversations.

The food was Ok, but the whole experience pissed me off way too much to want to go back.

[editorialgirl]

Oh, well done. I came on here to say as much myself.

You forgot to mention that the food is exactly the same as it was before (nice enough), except that each dish is about £2 dearer.

The noise was the worse thing. It was bad enough when it was people talking over each other, but gawd, they should really leave the jazz as background music instead of trying to compete. At one point there was a round of applause on the soundtrack and it sounded like the ceiling was coming in; everyone gasped and looked over at the bar, and I saw two people cover their ears. Maybe they should carpet a wall or something - it wouldn't look out of place under the new theme.

The service was as friendly as ever, though, and they seemed to be coping fairly well despite it being busier in there than it has been for ages. (Although saying that, I did end up making do without a knife after asking for one a couple of times.)

[Simon]

Oh, well done. I came on here to say as much myself.

You forgot to mention that the food is exactly the same as it was before (nice enough), except that each dish is about £2 dearer.

Which made it nigh on a fiver dearer in reality.

But that's only because you lot don't let the mathematician sort the bill out

[Geoff]

Bit of a shock, I must say, like bumping into your grannie at a Marilyn Manson concert. I remarked to Mrs G that this is what it would look like if there were an explosion at an Antiques Roadshow. A bit of Art Deco here, 70s retro there, a Fauvist dance thing going on on the wall and Turkish brothel toilets. Maybe it'll grow on me.

[Mazzawoo]

And the blinkin' tables don't match!

[Bill Lees]

We ate at K2 last Saturday. The food was terrific, as it in my view almost always is, and the staff were as friendly as ever (especially Jenny). I agree with Simon's point about the dining room now being all hard surfaces, which makes for a noisy room, but the tiled floor is un-changed and was always there. It's also noticeable that the old curtain/bench dividers must have absorbed a fair bit of noise - now they're gone it's altogether more echoey. I think that the re-design would work if they hadn't gone for those hellish bog-awful greek statue reliefs illuminated in green on the bar-front.