Combining my two biggest loves in life, food, and cinema, I take a look at the UK’s best cinema nachos and decide on a winner!
Now first and foremost you have to keep in mind that these are cinema nachos, instantly off the bat cinemas don’t exactly get the finest cuisine around so set your expectations low.
You certainly won’t find any pico de gallo, pinto beans, or melted cheese on these bad boys, oh no.
At the time of this review, all cinemas in my tier are completely shut down, one cinema chain featured in this list has closed for the foreseeable even beyond the tier system.
Forced to shut down in October the future of Cineworld was uncertain.
It was announced that the chain would be closed permanently until this November when a £560m rescue deal was announced for the chain.
The only reason I visited Cineworld was for their 4DX and Screen-X offerings and knowing that they will be back in some way shape or form in the new year is great news!
With independent cinemas being closed for quite some time we can only assess the big boys in this particular review but when restrictions are lifted we’ll be straight back out there to try nachos at other cinema chains.
The UK’s Best Cinema Nachos
So without further ado let’s dive right in with the three main cinema chains and the nachos that they serve behind the counter.
I have added various judging criteria for the sake of this article and this includes the following:
Price, Flavour, Freshness, Presentation, and overall thoughts of each particular dish.
Vue Cinema Nachos
We start proceedings off with Vue Cinema and the nachos on offer at their cinema.
This photo was taken just a few days before the UK went into the first lockdown and as you can see the corridors at Vue Cinemas in Newcastle Under Lyme were empty.
Going to see The Invisible Man before the shutters came down was as socially distanced as you could imagine with only around five people in the entire screening!
Price
Regular – £5.90
Large – £6.40
Certainly the most expensive on our nachos list but in our opinion, worth it.
Presentation – 3/5
Presented in a clear plastic tray the main section contained the nachos with the cheese sauce and jalapenos over them and the salsa was presented in its own little corner pot allowing you to dunk and dip as you please.
Now you may not think the presentation is much to look at, and you would be right, but this was definitely one of the better-presented nachos out of the three chains we have experienced so far.
The picture almost looks, tasty!
Funnily enough, this was the first photo I ever took on my iPhone 11 Pro that I had received that day.
Priorities!
Flavour – 4/5
Thankfully, this is where the iPhone 11 Pro photo came in handy as you can clearly see that the nachos have a certain dusting of flavouring over them which no other chain provided and mixed in with the warm cheese sauce and the peppers this dish was an absolute delight!
The salsa was the perfect blend of refreshing with a tint of light spice and these went down an absolute treat!
The peppers also had a hail mary kick that certainly woke me up a little bit during this late-night screening.
Freshness – 5/5
When you approach the cinema counter you usually see the nachos already prepared and I absolutely hate that as you wonder just how long they’ve been stuck in there for begging to escape.
When it came to Vue the nachos were in a giant warmer and the cheese sauce, salsa, and jalapenos were added separately much like how they do it in Subway restaurants.
It does make me wonder how long the sauces and peppers are kept in the same place and how often they are changed but they certainly tasted fresh.
The Jalapenos especially had such a bite to them, you can instantly tell when these peppers are fresh as you can assess the heat accordingly.
These definitely made me smack my lips!
Warmed cheese and fresh tasting salsa felt as though it had just been made that very same morning and our screening was at 10 pm!
I was very impressed with these!
Overall – 4/5
Cinema grade presentation aside this was a fine purchase indeed.
Naturally, £6.40 for nachos is a little pricey and priced higher than many restaurants that offer the same but this is to be expected from cinema prices.
Prices will not be judged in our criteria as across the board you expect to pay inflated cinema prices.
It’s how the cinemas make most of their money.
So for the purpose of this review and based on our ranking criteria, I’d give Vue a solid 4/5
Cineworld Nachos
On our way to see Tenet the second the cinemas reopened in 2020 I sampled Cineworld nachos for the first (and last) time.
Here are my thoughts on their nacho offering.
Price
Regular – £4.95
Large – £5.75
A considerable step down in pricing compared to Vue Cinema nachos but also a considerable step down in every other department.
Presentation – 1/5
I have given Cineworld Cinemas a 1/5 for presentation because the 1 is solely for the fact it comes in a cardboard tray.
When being served these nachos I was half expecting staff to ask me to hold my hand out and just give me everything in my eagerly open waiting hands.
With lazy jalapenos scattered in a pile on the top and all the sauces coming in unopened tubs just makes it look cheap and nasty.
The tray designed to hold the nachos in also comes with just two sauce holders yet you get the option of three sauces.
Just add another slot!
Flavour – 2/5
The chips were dry and had zero flavour.
The sauces were horrific and one even tasted off and the jalapenos had zero bite to them.
A tastebud firework display, it was not.
Freshness – 1/5
The sauces were horrific. Especially the cheese sauce.
I have never been sold cold cheese sauce before in a tub and it was horrific!
The sour cream and salsa sell-by dates were fast approaching and you could certainly tell as the sour cream had an extra kick that really shouldn’t be there!
This was a tough one to stomach.
With this particular order, the score could be easily improved with fresher sauces and fresher jalapenos.
Overall – 2/5
If Cineworld is to return in 2021 then I pray that they down bring these nachos with them!
Poor from start to finish, I was more surprised they were served in a printed designed tray.
That was a nice touch but sadly all the money was spent on the printed trays and not on the quality of the nachos themselves.
I dropped the sauce tubs more than once in the cinema as they were nowhere practical to put them, it was a disaster!
Absolutely horrific!
Don’t even think about cuddling in a movie theatre if you’ve ordered one of these, it’ll be a date night you’ll want to forget very quickly indeed.
If there was a silver lining (even though they were out of date) they added sour cream into the sauce mix, a feat that no other cinema chain offered me when purchasing the nachos.
I love me some sour cream, just not Cineworld’s!
To add insult to injury, the nachos were BAD, but Tenet was even worse!
Odeon Nachos
A VIP experience in Printworks brought me my first taste of Odeon cinema nachos, did they bring that VIP quality?
They weren’t half bad!
They were certainly better than this photo I took of them over a year ago on a very ropey phone camera!
Price
Regular – £5.60
Large – £6.00
The mid-tier pricing of nachos in our opening three nacho selection and they weren’t half bad!
Presentation – 5/5
I don’t need printed tubs or fancy designed packaging when it comes to my food.
The taste is all that matters!
But when it comes to these Odeon nachos they were wonderfully presented in this very smartly designed tray.
Almost like a customization tray, you have a section for your salsa, your jalapenos, and your warm bubbly cheese sauce to dunk and dip, mix and match as you wish.
I loved the idea of customization with my serving rather than everything slumped over at once.
It certainly helped massively in the pitch-black cinema, I wasn’t randomly reaching down and getting my hands messy I knew where everything was and it was a wonderful coordinated nacho dining operation.
Flavour – 3/5
If it wasn’t for the absolutely delightful cheese sauce the score would be on par with the Cineworld nachos.
That cheese sauce was perfection personified.
The salsa had flavour but it was a very distant flavour and the peppers weren’t strong whatsoever.
Vue definitely smashed it out of the park on the pepper front and no one else could top them.
Freshness – 2/5
Other than the aforementioned cheese sauce that came along to save the day this was a miserable dish and far from the VIP dining experience we were promised.
Overall – 3/5
Only a tad better than the Cineworld offering these Odeon nachos weren’t great whatsoever.
Basic chips with no flavour and no additional flavour of note coming from the sauces.
A disappointing display indeed.
You can do better Odeon!
So far in our quest for the ultimate cinema nachos Vue is leading the pack by quite some distance.
Flavoured chips, wonderfully hot, tasty cheese sauce, and jalapenos that definitely give you that freshness kick.
Whilst their presentation was certainly not the best of the bunch in terms of the tray it was presented in it was its flavour that allowed the nachos to shine head and shoulders amongst the rest.
Our quest will continue into 2021 when other independent chains re-open as our quest continues to discover the UK’s best cinema nachos.
I have to agree that Cineworld nachos are by far the worst ones. I remember going to the Odeon Luxe and loving their Nachos but the Cineworld ones are just a joke. The only thing Cineworld has going for it is the offer of things like 4DX and IMAX but as for the food stands they’re pretty lame. Couldn’t belive I also went to buy a special Avatar cup there and the staff made some bull excuse that they didn’t include a drink with the special cups not could they fill the cup with drink due to health and safety (so to use the special edition cup I needed to buy a standard cup of drink and decant it into the special cup.