All Bar One Houndsditch — Restaurant in London

On the 7th December, after probably a month since booking, my company and I arrived to have our annual Christmas dinner which we were pretty excited about. We had opened Secret Santa presents in the day and were wearing our Christmas themed jumpers and accessories so we were very excited to eat some good food in the evening!

We arrived at around 5.45 or so (15 minutes before our booking time) and were shocked to discover that the tables we had reserved were actually in the middle of the very busy and very loud bar level. We managed to find our table and sit down, dismayed at the fact that we could barely talk to one another or hear each other without raising our voices.

I, personally, visited the bathroom facilities not too soon after arriving and found that the whole downstairs area had been booked off for a consultancy firm. Coming back up, I spoke to one of the ladies who was working Front of House about the possibility of our group sharing the space downstairs with them (it was quite large and fairly empty in comparison to the area where we were.). I was told no because they had booked it, which I thought was fair. It was worth an ask!

However, the night slowly descended into a miserable affair. By 6.45, we hadn't been greeted by anybody or told what the protocol was. I had to go to the busy bar and flag someone down to tell them that we had been sitting in the area for nearly an hour with nobody coming to speak to us at all. I said that I know that the place was busy and we're trying to be patient but as some people have to leave around 9 pm we had hoped that we would receive some service not too soon after we arrived. The lady (red hair, black glasses, tattoo on left forearm) asked me whether we would like our starters now, then. I, of course, said 'yes, please, if that's ok' being polite.

We waited for a while, my colleague and friend flagged the same woman and asked her the same question too and was told that the starters were on their way from the kitchen and that they'd be there in 5 minutes.

When the starters arrived, we were dismayed to find that the dishes were cold, those with veggie options (truffled mushrooms on toasted bruschetta) were soggy while those with the ham hock option noticed that it was stone cold (on the menu the information on whether it was cold or warm was missing from the descriptions, which may have led us to assume it was going to at least room temperature.)

Then the main courses arrived. The veggie options were a firm 'ok' while the roast turkey option was also dull. The most shocking was actually the 3 people who had chosen the steak option. The steaks were well done and we noticed that there had been no communication on how they wanted their main meal so they were miserable.

Again, I'm aware of the busy nature of the bar and I understand that maybe short-staffing could have been an issue though I'm sure everyone can agree that having raw parsnips alongside your meal should have been and could have been avoided.

I think the only thing my colleagues and I enjoyed was the final course. Those who had the cheesecake thought it was tasty, the pie was full of flavour and the chocolate fondant that I had was just what I needed to get the endorphins going after sitting on a really uncomfortable bench for hours.

The main issue we as a group of 10+ people had was that we were paying around £25 a head for an area that was loud, really busy to get drinks, for cold, soggy bruschetta, chewy steaks, raw parsnips, minuscule portions of roast potatoes and uncomfortable seating.

The reason why I am writing this review is that I usually see the bright side of things, I'm pretty chilled when it comes to eating food. This is the first ever review I'm writing for a place but this is because if I don't like it and everyone in my company who were there (again 10+) people, didn't like it, I'm sure that something was wrong.

There is room for improvement here, definitely. But until then it's going down as a place not to book for an office...

Do not go to all bar one for lunch even if it looks empty inside.

We went last Friday for a leaving lunch and the speed of getting anything was ridiculous - it took at least 15 minutes to have all the drinks at our table (it wasn't even a complex order). After 45 minutes food still hasn't come and people had to go so they left without eating - we enquired about our food and were told we'd be next served - which meant another 15-20 minutes delay. Even getting and paying the bill took about 10 minutes.

And the worst bit was that they didn't even acknowledge or apologise for the delay in service - we didn't even get an explanation to why things were so slow. And other patrons were visibly upset with the service

All in all, a simple order of their standard menu took over an hour and a half, some people had to leave without eating and the rest of us had to rush as we didn't have the luxury of spending the entire afternoon away from work.

Would not...

This was an absolutely horrible experience. I had booked for a friends engagement party. I called ahead as we needed to push the reservation by a 30 minutes and was told this was absolutely fine. We arrived our table did not have the right amount of seats. Table was dirty food and drinks spilt all over. Asked to move or have table cleaned. Was ignored. So we took it upon ourselves to ask the bar again and said we would not be staying long. No music on, which i was not informed about. If i was we would not have come as there was absolutely zero atmosphere. The barmaid was incredibly rude and rolled her eyes at me when i asked a simple question. Clearly your staff all need training and to be taught how to treat customers. This completely ruined our night and my friends engagement as we were a big group and could not get in anywhere after leaving your establishment after 1...