Farrier & Draper - Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in Dublin

I booked an area on December 13th for my girlfriend's birthday. Unfortunately we had a very poor experience. I've contacted F&D bookings to request a refund in December but I still haven't heard back. Below is what happened.

Area Set Up Early on the day I called into to drop off a cake & 3 bags of balloons. I offered to set the area up for that night but the team took the bags of balloons from me so I assumed that the area would be set up when we arrived. Upon arrival later that night the bags of balloons were handed to my girlfriend to set up herself. While not the end of the world, this wasn't a great experience.

Cake I asked the staff to bring out the birthday cake. When it came time to sing happy birthday I asked a friend to ask the bar staff to temporarily turn down the music. My friend came back to me and said that the manager had refused this request. I had to argue with the manager to temporarily turn down the music even for 10 seconds while we sang happy birthday to my girlfriend. This was an extremely frustrating experience.

Cutting of the cake About an hour after the presentation of the cake none of the staff came with a knife to cut the cake nor did they come with any cutlery & plates so that my guests could eat the cake.

I asked the manager if they could sort this out but they informed me they couldn't cut the cake at the table and that I would have to bring the cake through the crowded floor to cut the cake at the bar. We would then need to bring plates of cut cake back across the crowded floor to the table. When I pointed out that the cake would get ruined going through the crowd it didn't seem to matter to the management. When the staff arrived with plates common sense prevailed and the cake was cut at the table.

Both of the above areas (signing happy birthday & cutting of the cake) are rudimentary requests that were handled extremely poorly.

Food As part of the booking I requested & paid for food for 15 people. The food didn't arrive. When I pointed this out to the manager he said that they didn't have food for us, in spite of specifically requesting this at the time of booking. He also pointed out that the 150 I paid was a pre-authorisation and that there wouldn't be an issue returning this to me.

As we received no food that I have paid for (as well as extremely poor service for the event)

Area As mentioned I booked (but didn't receive) food for 15 people. The area we received was 2/3 small tables. The area was too small and the floor was crowded to the point where we had to split up the party as all of the guests didn't fit in the are we received. Some were at a table by the front door while we were down at the back. The area we received was too small to accommodate the original booking.

There were numerous failures from the food , to the size of the area, to the cutting of the cake to the necessity of arguing with mgt to temporarly lower the music to sing happy birthday.

I'm sure you can agree that virtually nothing of what is a straight forward booking request was accommodated...

I booked this bar for a hen party group of 33 people for cocktail making for a Saturday in July 2023. From start to finish this was a terrible experience. When I arrived at 3.15pm to say I was there for a cocktail making booking at 3.30pm the person behind the bar had no idea there was a booking and there didn't seem to be any manager on duty to discuss this with. I had reconfirmed the booking with the office the previous day and had email confirmation. After a few minutes of confusion I was sent to a room upstairs which was clearly not set up for cocktail making. No tables set up, not even any water available, no waitress or server in the room, balloons stuck on roof from a previous party. We had to move tables around ourselves to set up for the group.

I had to ask three times for somebody to come into the room and serve us water and provide some glasses. After asking a couple of times, we finally had somebody come who took a simple drinks order (a couple of sparkling waters and two glasses of prosecco). We must have waited about 25 minutes for these drinks to arrive (we had to come out and follow up again with the people at the bar at least three times).

Finally somebody arrived to set up the cocktail making well after 4pm. He told me that the area was not set up for such a big group and that we would have to do it in two groups (had not been flagged to me previously).

We had booked the room from 3.30pm to 6.30pm. Before 6.30pm somebody arrived to tell us we needed to leave as they needed to set up for the next group. This is completely unsatisfactory, particularly given that our service began well after 3.30pm. I foolishly paid in full for the event including a service charge.

When I complained about the service to the office the following week I was told that the people meant to be working at our event had not showed up to work that day. I was not offered a refund. I was offered a refund of the service charge only and was told that while they acknowledged that the service was terrible we did all receive our two cocktails and thus were not entitled to any refund for the cocktail making. After much back and forth over a period of two weeks I was also offered a €250 voucher for farrier and draper. In my opinion, we should have been offered at least a 50% refund based on the terrible experience. I gave this feedback to the lady in the office who told me that after speaking to the manager and the CFO they did not agree with me.

I, or any of the other 32 people in attendance, would not recommend this place for an event. It was so disappointing and a terrible start to my...

This review is for LA CUCINA of Farrier & Draper - the basement, supposedly "Italian" restaurant. We booked for 4 of us, fancying some authentic Italain fayre. When we arrived, we spotted a lit, authentic pizza oven, a well-stocked bar in a rustic, brick-walled, cozy place - so we were really excited. Sat in a corner, next to a curtained doorway, we thought we were in for a treat. We looked at the menu, given by a surly waiter with an horrendous attitude, who looked sweaty, stressed and irritable (hair in a pony tail). Astonished at the lack of typical Italian dishes, we asked him some questions and ordered wine. He never smiled once, told us there was no pizza available and they did not serve either spaghetti bolognese nor garlic breads. His follow up to serve our wine was a "manager" wearing a fake Hublot watch but with just as much attitude. He'd obviously been pre-warned of our shock/horror and was ready for a conflict. However, we managed to get him to calm down, order some food, and wine, and watch people come and go constantly thru the curtains right beside our table. Turns out this was for private functions but it was really annoying to have the curtain flap, and a constant stream of people walk by our table. The food was bland, didn't taste Italian at all. Huge disappointment. We won't be back. There was some pretty good 80's music playing but too loud - difficult to talk above it. Perhaps trying to create some ambience? Shame - we hate not...