Joseph H.
Google
04/09/25; £40 pp
You know when you’ve spent a significant amount of time in a place and are therefore expected to be able to provide solid recommendations to visitors, and for whatever reason all the places you can think of come with a caveat, even if you’ve really enjoyed them? So much about that enjoyment is personal taste preference and individual, irreplicable experience of the time itself: the company, the mood, the atmosphere, the occasion; often it’s “well you could try here but it’s not great for vegetarians”, or “the food was amazing but I hadn’t had lunch that day”.
Cirilo suffers from none of that. Because I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody.
It’s a small space but it was easily less than half full when we went at 7pm on a Thursday night; we bustled in in good spirits and immediately raised the decibel readings about fourfold before (mostly) consciously toning ourselves down a bit. This required no effort from me, as I was instantly sad about having to scan a QR code to see the menu. “Ooh - I bet that’s going on the review!” Yes Amy, it absolutely is: all of a sudden the group transforms as phones are whipped out and notifications spotted; conversations become distracted, disjointed. I recognise I’m a grumpy old man about anything popularised after about 2011 (AI chatbots, VAR, “vibes”), but being a grumpy old man I’m set in my ways and QR code menus will forever remain a bugbear of mine.
But after the bang-averageness of the last Filipino we Nibbled at I was determined not to pre-judge Cirilo. The most interesting thing on the starters list was a seabass kinilaw, marinated overnight in lime, so I imagined a ceviche-style freshness. And they delivered! Flavoured with soy (like everything else on the menu), ginger and wasabi it was light and delicate with cucumber and sticks of crispy skin providing texture contrast. But that was as good as things got.
Frank and I also shared some duck pancakes, which were about as tasty as those you’d get from your local Chinese only colder and with runnier sauce. The others had their usual pastry-y, deep fried faves: spring rolls, crispy bean curd puffs etc all served with a sweet chilli sauce. I dipped my knife into Amy’s; a VERY sweet chilli sauce.
We ordered a nice cross-section of mains and none of the others I tried were as bad as mine so I don’t want to cast aspersions on the skills of the chef too generally, but… it was awful. I’d gone for a lechon paksiw - pork belly in a sweet soy, chicken liver and wine gravy, which reading back now makes me question my decision-making - but that gravy wouldn’t have been out of place over a warm sponge cake. Luckily it was served in a bowl on a plate, so I was able to extract and eat the meat less saucily, which improved things, but only just. Initially I was annoyed they’d bulked it out with potato, but the pork was so tough I didn’t really mind (or even finish it!), and if you can’t manage an egg fried rice that doesn’t taste of oily porridge you shouldn’t be expecting to make a living long term from cooking.
Like I say, most of the others seemed happier, although there was a bit of an odd feel to the whole place. We couldn’t order the pak choi as a side as they’d run out, but then loads of the mains had raw leaves sprinkled over the top, like they’d found some at the back of the fridge just as they were serving. Amy had left some bell peppers in her veggie noodles for me to try and I could see why: they were raw too, and not really chopped up. The chicken in the adobo was okay but I’d back myself to make a better version at home. Both wines we tried as a group were undrinkable for anyone less alcohol-dependent. It just felt nothing was done with any care - apart from Jeremy’s kare-kare, which was served with (I think I overheard this correctly) an explanation as to how the salt of the anchovies balances out the sweet of the peanut sauce. The whole eating experience was summed up by the fact we had a long discussion afterwards… about the merits of crumpets vs hot cross buns.
Coming to London? Sorry mate, can’t help you.