Restaurant review: Debenhams Oxford Street

I took my mum shopping for her outfit to wear to my wedding and decided to make personal shopper appointments in Debenhams and John Lewis on Oxford Street. They bring you different clothes to try on and know what style would suit your body shape. It was a pretty exhausting day as my mum must have tried on at least 15 outfits, but eventually found one she really liked.

As I knew it would be a busy day we didn’t want to take too long over lunch and I had a look to see whether Debenhams had a café. They have four!

We stopped for coffee before we started shopping and went to the W1 Bistro on the lower level; it is a very smart café that looks more like a wine bar, with a mixture of types of seating and a small food menu with things like toasted sandwiches, but we only wanted a drink.

Later, we found ourselves on the 5^th floor near the “family restaurant serving British classics” so decided to have lunch here. Most of the dishes on offer are what I would call “main meals” – fish and chips, pizza etc. They had a range of sandwiches and also a small range of ‘snack sized’ hot food choices, so my mum and I both decided to have a jacket potato with prawns. The potato was nice and fluffy with a generous helping of prawns, though the side salad had no dressing which would have been nice. I always find when I have jacket potatoes in cafes or restaurants that they are much smaller than I would have at home – I always search out the largest potato I can find in the supermarket! So I was hungry again before the end of the day but I expect that was partly because dress shopping when you want something very specific is hard work!