Angler Restaurant — Restaurant in London

Shockingly disappointing...

Looking at the reviews, which are amazing and highly rated, we arrived to the restaurant with the expectation of having a great time. However, it was not the case. Everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong.

Service. I don’t remember when and where I had that low level of service, absolutely awful!

On arrival, we asked for 2 glasses of champagne. It took 26 min to bring them to us and we had to remind for them again. The menu was presented which was pre-set. Ok, fine, not a big deal, we just going to have 10 courses, then we asked for a wine list and if we could have the wine pairing. Sommelier comes to our table and starts to say how much will cost every single glass of wine for pairing while staring at the wine list. I am sorry, first of all, I am not asking about the prices, secondly, the wines she mentions were not on the list, neither she could provide the list of these wines and thirdly, the wine list itself had roughly 15 reds and 15 whites, pretty standard and nothing too complicated to remember. She literally had NO clue what she was talking about. Moreover, she suggested, “you can pair wines yourself since we have almost every wine available by the glass”. Obviously, we can and we did pair wines ourselves since we felt we had more knowledge in wines than a restaurants sommelier.

Next, bread arrives with some appetisers. There are no side plates, for which we had to ask…. Also, we asked to leave one menu on the table so we could follow the dishes. On the third dish, we realised we had completely wrong menu presented to us! Furthermore, when they were bringing a dish, they were rushing through with explanation and had no time for any question. We always had new waiters coming to our table who clearly did not communicate in-between themselves, creating a very stressful atmosphere.

At this point, I was thinking about what else possibly go wrong? And here you go! Smellier brings my husband a sweet wine to try as she thought he might like it, completely ignoring me. It was just so wrong on many levels. She was NOT even advising us on wine choices, where it came from?

On the food, the presentation was good. However, it looked like the chef used exactly the same sauce (which tasted like mayonnaise) pretty much in every single dish. This made dishes taste nothing special, nothing was memorable or amazing. Was pretty average and standard cooking.

Last, but not least, the bill. Even that was wrong. We had extra drinks on our bill, wrong champagne. We asked the waiter to look into it on what he replayed “I don’t know anything about it, YOU should ask sommelier”.  I am sorry, who is working in this place, I have to ask sommelier or you will? Anyways, somellier comes to our table and we had to walk her through wine list on every single wine we had! How on earth did she become a sommelier? The bill difference was about 28% of the total bill. I am happy to pay for things I ordered NOT for random stuff appearing on it!

Finally, when we made a reservation we mentioned it was our engagement anniversary, which was completely ignored. It was such a disappointing experience and I am really struggling to understand how this place got a Michelin star. Who gave it to them? It was just absolutely waste of our evening. It is not a place I will recommend neither I am willing to come...

The tasting menu was good. I thought the food was largely delicious so my point goes to that alone. But, the menu did not match what we were served. For example the quince dish never appeared but a cranberry one did. No explanation about the change. The fish was overdone so some may have been disappointed by that. My biggest problem was the service and overall ambiance. To compare this with other establishments with the same rating would be impossible. It does not meet the standards of a fine dining restaurant let alone a starred one. The staff were speaking about guests at the till station where there is a mirror so you can see exactly what they are doing. They stood there in groups of 3 and it did not make me feel comfortable at all. They cleared food while we were still busy. They overlapped dishes. The water was tepid. The finesse was nonexistent. They did not know the dishes well. They had sullen expressions and made me feel unwelcome to say the least. They asked how something was but didn't make eye contact or wait for an answer often times they answered the question themselves. How was x good yes good. I didn't say a word. The design of the space was that I could see the opening to the kitchen. This was not intended as a focal point of the space but rather poor design. The chefs were sticking their heads out the space watching and speaking with the staff on the floor. The lights were bright making the atmosphere cold and impersonal. I understand that the festive season is in full swing but I don't want to listen to rudolf the red nosed reindeer at a starred establishment. I heard it enough in the grocery store and every other place iv entered for the last month. There are carols and then there is rudolf the red nosed reindeer. I think that was the cherry on top for me. The clientele within the surrounding spaces were drunk loud men and office Christmas parties. It seriously dampened the mood when you are waiting ages for the lift to leave and it's full of drunk men so you can't get it and have to wait for yet another one. It's not the class factor one expects. So unfortunately I need to write something negative as this was not a place that lived up...

Where do I begin? My partner and I came here after 3 months of looking forward to it we were bitterly disappointed. We have been to a Michelin star restaurant before and loved it, after this trip I don’t think they even deserve to be in the guide let alone a star. They were grossly understaffed, we felt completely rushed the whole time. Firstly we sat down, one side was a sofa that was so low it wasn't the right height for the table and in general I felt the restaurant was crammed… not exactly an initiate experience when we were practically sat on the same table as to the table to our left. We didn’t even receive our drinks before we were delievered the first dish with a rushed run down of what it was… then following dishes were hurried out after. My partner went to the loo and they served us before he even got back so he got back to almost cold food (it wasn’t that hot in the first place) As for the food, it was bland and lacked anything special. When we have eaten at other restaurants with the same status we have been in awe of the food and each mouthful was like a punch of flavour. The only flavour we could taste was salt. The tipping point was the turbot, which was over cooked and bland. So we sent it back and were given the message from the chef that actually we didn’t know what we were talking about and it’s just not to our palette… we were given their ‘signature dish’ as an alternative which was equally as bland and I couldn’t even tell you what the flavour of the thing was. With this in mind we spoke to the waiter who agreed that we could leave and didn’t charge us for the meal. I left feeling in disbelief and completely let down. I am worried about anyone who has never had the Michelin star experience before that they will be put off by the high price tag… because what we were served wasn’t worth even a third of the price advertised and I am glad we didn’t have to pay for anything other than our wine. We won’t be returning and I hope their chef gets his star revoked… not just because of his inability to cook but for his...