Sixbynico Reviews 208

First time at SixByNico (Glasgow West End). 6 course Funfair taster menu. Quite a letdown. Food was average at best, and some dishes were poorly conceived, with a mismatch of flavours, and too much salt. One dish was mostly unpalatable.

Service was tired, rushed, and inattentive. All of this would be bad enough if the price was fair, however £135 for 2 people with no alcohol, and 6 tiny dishes which were quite literally “one bite” each, is wildly and inexplicably overpriced.

Disappointing experience and would not return.

If I could give minus stars I would. My husband received vouchers for his retirement and we've had a difficult year. Wanted to use them in new year in 2024 but no, they won't honour them. £150 worth of vouchers and no meal. Absolutely disgusting way to treat people. Don't buy vouchers from them. We won't ever go to any of their restaurants agsin

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!)

Disappointed after being told by vouchers@sixbynico that we aren't able to use the gift vouchers we received as a wedding gift last year (£80). They won't extend the expiry date. This was 6 months which I hadn't realised! Thought it was a year & its written in v small print! I explained to them were unable to use them within 6 months as husband works shifts us we have 3 kids. I wanted to book for March 2024 for first anniversary. They were unwilling
to extend & were not understanding at all. Very poor. Won't be dining there now as that's put me right off.

Avoid buying a gift voucher for Sixbynico. £100 wedding gift voucher had a ridiculous 6mth expiry on it. Clearly not an inclusive restaurant that understands not everyone lives in a city with little or no child care to consider.

We arrived for our reservation to find the door locked. Staff could quite clearly see us stood on the pavement in the cold but we were left stood standing outside for approximately 5 minutes. We were eventually let in, no apologies or reason given.

Ordered vouchers for Birmingham, but the confirmation email suggested I would get vouchers for Aberdeen (a click or type error). It took a short while to get an answer from NICO due to time of year but, they indeed sorted the issue and I’m looking forward to our 1st visit. Looks great

Recently ordered two vouchers for two different people at different addresses. Have received notification that one was despatched and now delivered but have received nothing regarding the second voucher! Tried emailing, Facebook messaging and no help/no reply. I am getting very anxious over this now as time is running out and a lot of money has been spent. Customer service is zero and has ruined the whole experience

Still waiting on vouchers, a dispatch note, text.. something.. anything! I can't believe I've spent so much at six over the years and this whole voucher situation has ruined my perception

I haven’t yet received a voucher purchased on Black Friday. No response to emails. I am extremely worried. Should I be? This is an important gift. I don’t know what to do??

Ordered voucher and paid £5 for delivery on November 23rd. No voucher. No reponse to contact attempts. They did respond to this post eventually and reassured me and the voucher has now arrived. So hence changed the staring.

Very pushy staff, spoiled the whole experience. Staff are sexeist and quite frankly set in 80s. Avoid
Manchester btw

Sad to say I never got to eat here. Had vouchers that I understood to have a year's expiry. Turns out they only have a 6 month expiry and Six by Nico refused to honour them. My own fault, but pretty poor to take the money and run...

In response to emails (and online reviews), they claimed it was not possible to extend them, which is patently untrue. Avoid at all costs

Had street food taster menu.
The drinks were nice.
The service was nice, staff very helpful, explained everything, answered all the questions professionally.
The food, on the other hand, wasn’t so good.
We ordered a side dish for a 5 year old child and even he said that it was tasteless. We had mac and cheese croquettes, the mac and cheese had no taste and was too oily, pickles from a jar, sauce was ok.

First course was the nicest off all 6. It was pork steamed bun with some pickled mushrooms and chilli oil. No complaints, just delicious.

2nd course was samosa, which was too oily and tasted like it’s been from the grocery shop.

3rd course was kebab, which was ok, the garlic foam was extremely garlicky and and didn’t match the dish.

4th course fish taco. It tasted quite nice but my plate was under seasoned while my partners was too salty!

5th course Satay, burned Pac Choi, everything else fine.

6th course desert: cocoa mousseline - lèche sorbet, léché sauce, buttermilk sauce caramel??? No taste coffee sponge?? All flavours didn’t went well, was too many of them in one desert.

Overall: too many flavours in one plate, under seasoned or over seasoned food, pre cocked and reheated. Very disappointed, specially because it was quite costly and quality didn’t match.

Son bought several Six by Nico vouchers as Christmas Gifts last year.

Turns out some have 12 month validity and some have 6 month validity (which we didn't spot)

Unable to use the vouchers in their restaurant and head office unwilling to reinstate the vouchers - so we have lost £80 because of some pretty brutal use of terms and conditions

Wouldn't mind but I ended up having to pay for the meal - which as others have said is rather "ready meal meets TV chef" in style

You wont be surprised to find that I wont be back

I really don't get it. Tasting menus for those who don't know better? All those posh foodie-style things you hear Gregg Wallace say on MasterChef replicated in a semi-professional ready meal?

Catalunya, home of two of the world's most iconic restaurants ever. Reduced to:

Croquetas: why bother with just an authentic Spanish Béchamel when you can add undercooked potatoes "to give it some crunch"????

Patatas Bravas: surely you can't mess up such a perfectly simple dish? Oh, yes you can. It tasted musty, more aioli than Bravas sauce. Totally uninspiring.

Chicken and mushroom. Fine until you tasted the bergamot in one of the side sauces. Even the more than palatable wine served with it was dulled by the overpowering grimness of the bergamot.

Tomatoes: massive textural issues. the pa amb tomaquet had clearly been made some time beforehand judging by the soggyness of it, although it tasted fine. The olive oil caviar was tasteless and texturally solid.

Deconstructed Paella: Acceptable and flavoursome, although the pickled mussels were probably from a jar and the squid ink rice cake was so so dry, it was uninspiring.

Pork rib with sobrasada and £9 extra prawns: pork moist and delicious, the sobrasada was mixed with so much filler, it lost its charm. The prawns were fine. The bean stew was literally overreduced baked beans from a can ( not Heinz)

The crema Catalana: flavoursome and delicious. Along with the wines the reason for the two star review. However, given it is Catalan week, I would have expected the wine selection to have been at least Spanish.

Would I go back? Possibly, but not in a hurry

Fitzrovia, London
A truly wonderful dining experience. Food was really tasty, beautifully presented and staff very attentive.
Will definitely be returning again.

Horrendous experience in Edinburgh. We were given a £50 gift card for our engagement and booked 4 months after. However today when we went to pay, we were advised the voucher was out of date my two weeks. Supposedly it expires after 6 months. The Manager recognised how unbelievably ridiculous this was but couldn't over ride it. The whole point in going was because we got the gift card, and were celebrating getting engaged. We had to email the head office to try and rectify the issue. Dreadful

Booked a table for 4 people on a Saturday night and could get only get 9-30pm but we really wanted to give this new place a go so went with it. It started off really well and our server was great until we got to 11pm and course 5, our server had finished her shift and came to tell us she was leaving , we had no other server introduced to us and were suddenly just left, our friends had to leave as they had a babysitter to get home to so missed out on the dessert , after still waiting at midnight for our dessert we then said to the manager to cancel it and just bring the bill. He was very apologetic ( he also didn’t realise our server had left and actually rang her ! ) and did reflect this is the final bill but it wasn’t the full experience that we thought we would get, yes we will go back as the food was really good and I do believe it was just a slight mix up and confusion but in a fine dining establishment like this you really do have to be 100% on your delivery of service. It was a shame as it spoilt a lovely night but we would like to give it another a go and hope they take measures not to allow this to happen again and deliver the full experience.

Edinburgh Branch. The theme of the tasting menu was Catalonia. Unfortunately, this meal was a game of two halves, in that the 'original' menu offered a far better meal (and far better value for money) than the 'vegetarian' alternative. While the 'original' plates served were artistically plated and very obviously better value in terms of actual food cost, the vegetarian plates looked like a consolation prize in comparison. One original dish - served with chicken and mushroom - was presented to our poor vegetarian guest at the table with a few more mushrooms to compensate for the 'missing' chicken. Another dish where the original option was a plate featuring pollock, mussels and black rice cakes was paired for the vegetarian alternative with an unappetising green risotto with a soggy courgette slice on the top and an emulsion the colour and flavour of thousand island dressing. To add insult to injury, the next horrible course for our poor vegetarian friend was a lukewarm, rubbery omelette which they were expected to force down while we were served pork belly, Spanish sausage with a white bean ragu. A shockingly poor menu for non-meat eating diners.