The Bookbinder — Restaurant in Liverpool

This place was honestly the worst dining experience I've ever had in the 34 years on this earth. And that is being kind. My wife and I visited the Bookbinder on 7/10 at around 11ish with our two American friends. They wanted to experience their first English breakfast and having been here before we thought we would take them. When we entered it was a very strange atmosphere, completely different to what we had previously experienced. No one greets you and after exchanging a few looks for the bar staff, I made my way over and was told to grab a menu and seat ourselves. I then seen a small sign the right when walk in that said 'Grab a menu and order at the Bar'. Very very strange for a restaurant we thought. We then sat ourselves upstairs and ordered.

Our food arrived within about 10/15 minutes an because we ordered separately to our friends, my wife and I's came first. Before the young girl finished placing our plates I could see multiple hairs on one of our plates. As I went to take them off I could see they were fully wrapped around and stuck to the bacon. As my wife began to bork, I then inspected the rest of her plate. I was horrified to find not only a small black hair on her egg but also what looked like fluff from a jumper on the other side of her egg.

This tipped us over the edge and as the young lady approached us with cutlery I showed her our plates and she was visibly embarrassed. She offered us a full refund.

As our American friends were very hungry they said they were happy to wait for their food. After another 5 minutes their food arrived and they began to inspect their plates. One of our friends was then horrified to find another hair completely wrapped around their vine tomatoes. We then all began to bork.

I was livid and embarrassed that we had proudly wanted to show them what an English breakfast should be like, only to be served food with more hair than you'd find on a hairdressers floor.

I then made my way downstairs and approached the young lady and asked her what is going on? Do the chefs not check their food? Does anyone own a hair net in this place?

I then looked inside the kitchen and instantly realised where all these hairs had come from. I could see a very hairy male chef with a dark beard who wasn't wearing a hair or beard net. A few seconds later I then say another male chef without a hair net as well.

The lady again was mortified and agreed to refund our friends.

We are honestly not the moaning type and if it was one hair we would be willing to let that slide as mistakes happen. There was a feeling of total negligence from those in the kitchen, chefs who love what they do would not send food out like that.

I hate to say it, but please avoid this place like the plague, unless you want to be scarred for life. We couldn't eat for the rest of the day and we still feel sick now thinking about it. I can honestly say I don't think we will ever be able to go for breakfast again. So thanks BookBinder.

If I could give this place minus stars I would but I have given the service 1 star and that is purely for the girl who refunded us.

I would be interested to know when this place was last checked by the food...

I was in this place today with my sister. I wanted to treat her to a belated birthday lunch. My sister lives around the area and said she'd wanted to try it as it looks nice. I have to say that I am completely baffled by the 5 star reviews that I'm seeing, and I'm wondering are we all actually talking about the same place? Maybe Friday is an off-day or something,who knows. Food and drinks have to be ordered at the bar - there is no table service,which is just a palaver,especially when seated upstairs. And as is standard today, the food was mediocre, the prices were pretty ridiculous for the standard of food you get and the staff had a "don't really wanna be here" vibe to them, but I can't say I blame them,because after about 15 minutes in there, i didn't want to be there either.If we get good service when we eat out, we always leave a good tip, but we didn't on this occasion,so we left no tip. I can almost guarantee that come this time next year, this place will go the way of so many food establishments on Lark Lane - ripped out,refurbished and renamed. Which is a sad state of affairs really for everyone involved. Eating out these days in this country just feels like a massive p*ss take, but it felt even more so for me here. We won't be going back to...

I came here for lunch with my friend at around 2pm on a Saturday, ordered 1 meal and two small plates, the coffee was very nice and the atmosphere was good with friendly staff. There ends the positives, we were waiting over 1.5 hours for our food to arrive, given very little reassurance that it was actually going to arrive having to ask multiple times "what on earth was happening". Finally the food came, and we wrangled some free drinks (upon our very reasonable request). Another thing, although not the places fault, a very rude customer (in an ugly red versace jumper) allowed his filthy pooch to clamber all over me (my friend exclaimed "what da dog doin") whilst I was still eating my luke warm burger and refused to acknowledge this inconvenience, something that I imagine happens a lot with the amount of k-9s around the place. Although a lovely setting and atmosphere, the experience was unfortunately shadowed by extremely slow service, something that seems to be a reoccurring theme reading other reviews. May give another chance but wouldn't...