5th View — Restaurant in London

Tl;dr: this was the worst brunch I ever had in my entire life. Went there for lunch on a Sunday. Nobody brought us to a table; the staff told us to pick up a menu and choose a table. There was no A/C but the windows were wide open and we had a “view” from the top floor - that’s the only positive. The menu is basically a classic pub menu with burgers, roast and fish and chips; plus a brunch section (variations around a basic avocado toast). I went for the avocado toast with a poached egg & bacon. We asked do the same thing for our 5y old daughter but if they could scramble the egg. The waitress asked the kitchen and they REFUSED. (I still don’t understand how you can’t scramble an egg when you serve poached eggs). So I ordered a fish & chips instead… My wife ordered the quinoa salad as she’s celiac. 20mn later the waitress comes back saying they don’t have any quinoa… we asked for the gluten free options and the only one they offered was their roast chicken… alright… 20mn later we get the dishes. Fish & chips: chips were ok - just missed salt. Fish batter was really bad; overfried (I suspect they pre-fry them and re-fry them on demand…). And there was a ton of coarse salt on it. Chicken: meat was ok - nothing special. The veggies were definitely pre-cooked and reheated on demand - bleh. Avocado toast: first, it wasn’t a toast since the bread wasn’t toasted… the avocado wasn’t fresh - they use that guacamole paste you can find in supermarkets - yuck!!! And the poached eggs were over cooked (not runny at all) BUT also cold… no salt, no pepper. Bacon was cold as well. It was so disgusting that we ate quickly. The waitress was cleaning a table next to us so I politely asked for the bill. She shushed me (yep!) to ask (shout) for a bottle of water to the front desk and then was ok for me to ask for their bill. Paid 63£ for that “meal”. Worst service, worst meal ever. Avoid...

My friend and I chose this place because of 2 reasons - one, Waterstones is usually never disappointing (book and coffee wise); two, 5th View is advertised to have an amazing view over the city... Well, we ended up being VERY disappointed and thinking how perhaps Waterstones should simply stick to being a book store... We never managed to lay eyes on the so portrayed excellent view because it only exists for half of the place (conveniently at the side of it, where you must eat something and you cannot just have drinks); instead, we had to sit in a rather dark booth. There was happy hour on all cocktails and I got excited, so ordered 2 gin Martinis. The Martinis were disgusting and so were the olives inside. In terms of service, the waitress was only friendly to me (and ignored my friend a few times) and being extremely slow at times. We didn't really have food (except for scones, which my friend wasn't a fan of), so cannot comment on that. But guess would never find out as I am not coming back to this place. Given the quality of our order and the service, I'd say...

Came here for a quick bite and thought it would be your average waterstones cafe... it was not. Asked for a minute to order and 15 minutes later we were still waiting. After catching the attention of the waiter we asked to order, he came back not once but twice to tell us what we wanted was sold out- though it was still early in the day so I question if they actually had any to begin with. When our "chocolate and orange tarts" arrived they were nice enough, maybe a bit stale (matching the damp peeling walls). Now the real issue arose: a small cup of coffee, 330ml of diet coke and two slivers of tart (that was our third choice) came to around £15. And they had the gall to add a 10% service charge? If I wanted to pay that much for the little amount we got, I would have walked the 5 minutes to Fortnam and Mason. Would not return and could not recommend. Its safe to say that "London's best kept secret" is infact, best if its kept as a secret.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the table next to us, who were served out of date clotted cream and were not given a...