Las Iguanas is a small chain of south American restaurants. There is an accessible PDF menu on the website and I thought it looked interesting so myself and a friend went to try the food. The home page is http://www.iguanas.co.uk
As usual, the staff at Westfield were very helpful. A member of Concierge staff met us at the desk and took us to the restaurant where the manager, a Lithuanian Guy called Justin generally looked after us very well. He was happy to read the menu to us and explain some of the dishes as required.
I had Lamb Empanadas which are pasties of mildly spiced slow cooked lamb and a side of spicy cranberry salsa.
This was quite comforting and I would describe the dish as a cross between a pasty and a samosa. It was bigger than a samosa but smaller than a Cornish pastie and there were 2 of them so it was quite a large starter.
My main was just called POLLO CON CHORIZO which means chicken with Chorizo. The description from the menu is Chicken thigh, smoked pork & garlic chorizo with cannellini
beans & cayenne, slowly braised in tomatoes & red peppers.
With garlicky rice, coriander yoghurt & corn tortilla chips. This did indeed turn out to be a hearty very comforting casserole and I have to say that even after 2 courses I was pretty full.
Never the less, I had a pudding as well which was PECAN CARAMEL SUNDAE. On the menu this was described as Toasty pecan butterscotch sauce over vanilla ice cream.
With nut-encrusted tortilla wedges. I think they mean toasted but this is a consistent mistake throughout the menu.
That description of the pudding is pretty accurate and I must say that one of the things that impressed me about this restaurant was the clarity of the descriptions of the menu, keeping bullshit down to a minimum.
After 3 courses I was truly stuffed and could not have eaten more. The bill included a service charge of 12.5 percent which is clearly stated on the menu. I do not like this policy since I prefer to be left to decide myself whether I want to pay a tip and what that tip should be. To be fair, the manager did tell us very clearly that the service charge was optional. It is probably not his decision to impose the service charge as this is a chain. Either way I cannot fault the service we received. By the time we finished our meal, the roaming concierge staff had left as they finish at half 9. Justin the restaurant manager lead us to the tube station entrance so he went well beyond the call of duty there.
This is quite a large restaurant within the Westfield shopping centre. The atmosphere was a bit like sitting in a buss station. It was a bit echoy and it did feel a bit like sitting in the food court at an airport or large train station but the sounds around us were not so loud we could not hear ourselves speak. This is certainly not a relaxed intimate restaurant where you might go for a romantic meal. If you did you might be too full to do much afterwards anyway!
For 2 of us, the total bill came to £72. This included a service charge of about £8 so the food and drink bill was about £64 or £32 each. For that we got 3 generous courses of food, we shared a bottle of house red and had a liqueur coffee each. I thought the food was interesting and my only criticisms would be the atmosphere of the restaurant which felt too much like just eating in a shopping centre rather than being in a restaurant and the service charge which was put on the bill rather than encouraging people to decide what tips to give themselves.
I still give the food an 8 out of 10. I’ve never been to south America so I can’t really comment on the authenticity of the food.
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