Andrew Edmunds — Restaurant in London

We decided to visit Andrew Edmunds for a family treat after my daughter had visited several times previously, but to say we were dissatisfied is an understatement.

We arrived promptly, having heard that guests were allocated a 2 hour time slot and were ignored by a very flamboyant member of staff who gave the impression he had better things to do than attend to customers. Having waited aimlessly for 10 minutes in the cramped upstairs dining area we were eventually sent downstairs to find our table.

Our rather harassed & over-worked waiter took the order after 25 minutes and a further half an hour later the food arrived. We ordered the dressed crab and the air dried meats.

The dressed crab is not prepared at the restaurant but purchased wholesale from a Colchester seafood supplier, unwrapped and plonked on a plate & the price doubled. Exactly the same story with the dried meat although there was at least a spoonful of piccalilli daubed on the plate. The starters were fine but involved zero culinary skill by the staff.

After staring at our finished plates for a further 20 minutes, they were collected by our waiter who was by now running around manically, trying to cope with all the downstairs diners simultaneously. So far so bad.

After an unimpressive start, things deteriorated. The main course of rose veal turned out to be 2 small chunks of stewed beef attached to each other by a huge piece of sinew & fat. This was "presented" on some sloppy mashed potato with a single limp carrot & some watery gravy. This took me back to my days as a schoolchild and some miserable, grey school dinners.

The mallard dish that we also ordered was virtually inedible. I'm not sure what caused the demise of the duck, but suspect it was old age as it was comically tough and we abandoned any realistic hope of consuming it. The accompanying seasonal greens and potatoes were tragically limp and overcooked.

On expressing our feelings to the waiter we were told that most of the staff had recently left and had been replaced by staff from St John's. This could only have meant staff from St John's Ambulance rather than the restaurant, given their utter lack of competence in the kitchen.

To his credit, the apologetic waiter deducted the veal and vegetables from our bill after admitting that we were not the only customers who had been underwhelmed that night.

This establishment is clearly living on past glories. The food is nasty, overpriced & lazily prepared, the dining area is cramped and the restaurant is chronically understaffed. When there are so many other great places to eat in London, I'm amazed that Andrew Edmunds restaurant managed to survive. It certainly...

This is one of my favourite places in London and I normally recommend it to my friends and people I know are big foodies. This restaurant has been a staple of my London life since 1992, the year I moved to Uk, and it has always been consistent, faultless, and just perfect. The ambience is still good, the food is still good, the lack of attention to detail and the rushed, careless service from our waiter ( a short, bald guy that was probably rushed off or simply too busy to cope with guests asking for guidance on wines, or desserts, leaving us meanwhile we were talking to him, mid-sentence), is simply unbelievable. If you are busy, I understand, but leaving us meanwhile we are deciding, or asking your opinion, is not ok, no matter how you want to look at it. It happened twice, when I was asking for advise on the wine, and then again when we were trying to order the desserts. I am ok with waiting, I am ok with receiving the starters before the wine we ordered, I am ok with leaving the langoustine shelves on the table for a long time and getting the wine at the wrong temperature, and not clearing a small table, not replacing the dirty plates and cutlery, and not bringing the new cutlery, but it is not ok to tell us in an angry way to move a very small iPhone so he could put the new food on the table without having cleared the dirty plates and cutlery which were there for a long time first. This was also a birthday dinner for my best friend, and this was specified in the reservation. Of course it was ignored and nothing was mentioned or even acknowledged during our dinner. Again, I am astonished by how badly things have gone in one of my favourite places on the service side. We ordered the smoked mackerel and the langoustines to start with, the pork chop with fennel and the hake with anchoiade, plus a very good Chassagne Montrachet, and a brownie with blackcurrant and creme fraiche, together with a meringue with pear and chocolate sauce . I am very sad to say I am not rushing to go back . Which is a shame, as I was very fond of...

Lovely staff, great food, and really chill. It took us about 10 minutes to work out what was so different about Andrew Edmunds, and then we realised - no background music. We could actually hear each other speak without shouting at each other, it was lovely. Don't get me wrong in the right context music is great - Bone Daddies round the corner would be missing something without it, but Andrew Edmunds didn't need it and it was great for it.

It's a restaurant however, so the important bit it the food. We had the smoked eel and the pigs cheek to start (yes it's that kind of place) and the skate with capers and the special (wood pigeon with roast carrots and beetroot) for the main. The starters were delicious, the eel (which if you haven't had before is a bit like mackerel) was beautifully smoky, like eating an autumn bonfire if that's your thing. The pigs cheek was rich and melting - just right.

The mains were also good, though for my taste the skate could have had just a bit less butter, the pigeon was perfect and the greens and new potatoes on the side were just right. The presentation is nice and not fussy, and portions are good.

Deserts were v. trad, apple crumble and a sour cherry sponge, I could have eaten the sponge twice over.

The dishes themselves are reasonable price wise (c.£8 for a starter/dessert, c.£20) you could spend twice this at Brat in Shorditch. The booze is more pricey, but it was mid week and I'm a light weight so we only had half a bottle of wine. If however you want to blow a month's salary on one dinner it's the wine list that will get you.

Staff were friendly and helpful when explaining food and wine queries. We would...