Art Yard Bar & Kitchen — Restaurant in London

Wrote this up as we finished our visit to the the Christmas dinner buffet on Dec 25th. But I needed to remove the profanity before it would go live. Something I said? :)

This review is specifically regarding our Christmas dinner at the Art Yard.

First of all, the food was old. Not sure how else to put it. The buffet is open until 10 PM, we showed up about 8:30 PM. Clearly the food has ALREADY been sitting out for a couple of hours without being tidied up or refreshed. Bzzt.

For example, the main courses have been sitting under heat lamps for hours, Bzzt. The gravy for the mystery meat is nonexistent or clotted. Bzzt. The bread section is depleted, the dessert table looked like it was half eaten, and bits have fallen on the table itself, and the cream filled profiteroles were nice and warm (sarcasm). (Bzzt, etc.)

I mean- OK that food has been eaten over the last hour or two, but come on. You need to rearrange the serving dishes/plates so it doesn't look like it's been sitting there for as long as it clearly has been and worked over by Vikings. And no serving utensils. And no dessert plates. Really?

The glass of wine I ordered had more sediments at the bottom than a old fish tank. I pointed it out. I had to suggest that maybe they shouldn't charge me for a glass of dregs, and they did reverse that charge. But no comment. No apology? I'm not snobby, Really! But come on. If YOU want to pretend to be a fancy restaurant, then YOU need to pretend to be one.

We sat near the entrance from the hotel side, I watched as people came down to order food and were told the the restaurant was closed for the Christmas dinner buffet, even though clearly the restaurant had less than ten people in it. Not hyperbole: the place was nearly empty. Instead of letting people sit and order off the menu, I saw at least half a dozen families/parties order "room service" and stand around until their food was handed to them on a room service tray, and then they left carrying it back to their rooms. I guess it's Christmas dinner for them in front of the telly. Nice for your hotel guests, right? Right.

Why not let them sit and order and eat and get drinks from the bar? If you managed a restaurant like this, you would let people sit and order and get drinks from the bar and.... What a missed opportunity for customers. So much for attempting conviviality in an empty restaurant on a major holiday. London was packed all week, and this place was empty.

What a sad, pathetic, poorly-managed, nearly-inedible, antisocial Christmas Dinner. It's going to be unforgettable, but not really the way you would want a holiday meal to be memorable.

And there were plenty of staff, so clearly they weren't short-handed, that wasn't an issue. Somehow they managed to have enough staff to NOT serve guests particularly attentively. WTF.

When the waiter asked me if everything was ok, I actually pointed out several of the issues noted above. He said, "I'll tell my manager," but nobody came by to make any excuses, which would have at least been... Well, at least someone making excuses. Nothing.

Maybe they don't care about the food/restaurant as a profit center, as the restaurant is part of the hotel? I don't know. The only thing impressive is if (1) I actually don't get sick from the antediluvian cream pastries and (2) they stay in business. Now those would be a Christmas miracle!

Enough. People say English food is bad- it wasn't that. It's really just this place. Other reviews are positive, so maybe it was just this night. But it was definitely poor this night. Worst meal of my Christmas week in London was Christmas dinner at this restaurant.

Injury to the insult: Total was - wait for it... About $277 US, £220 UK. Wow. That's absurd for a Christmas meal this impressively disappointing. Wow (again). How about a "welcome" glass of wine for your €100 Scheißepalooza buffet customers before the patrons have to suffer this culinary hellscape?...

I can only assume the positive reviews on here are from people in self-denial trying to cope with the embarrassment of having paid such high prices for such awful food. Or maybe the chef had called in sick the night we visited. (One important note, our server was very nice). The asparagus and Burford Brown egg was two pieces of boiled asparagus and a hard-boiled supermarket egg, with a bland green sauce that was completely unseasoned. The salmon was basic; fried, unseasoned, and presented with two more sticks of slightly overcooked asparagus- a meal which would take any inexperienced cook five minutes in their own home. (This was £26 not including sides, except for more tasteless green purée) I could go on. £38 for a small, thin rib-eye (this one came with some salt on it!) and no sides included. I’ve yet to meet anyone that can make a bad rib-eye so this was at least fine. I feel really insulted actually; to be charged money like this, for food inferior to most home cooks and using ingredients which (by the admission of the menu) you can find in Sainsbury’s. Lovely decor! I guess that’s enough for some people, looking at the reviews. Unbelievable that they’re getting away with it to be honest - but it is I think part of a hotel and if anywhere’s doing “hotel food”...

We had a deeply disappointing experience at the restaurant, largely due to the poor management. We had a reservation for 4:30 PM and noticed that the restaurant was nearly empty upon our arrival. However, we were told that we couldn't sit at one of the sofa tables for three because they were "unsure" about a booking for 7 PM, despite there being a two-hour gap.

This situation left us feeling quite uncomfortable, especially since we had specifically chosen this restaurant. To make matters worse, around 6 PM, two other patrons were seated at those same sofa tables that we were told we couldn’t have, which felt like a clear case of unfair treatment. I felt compelled to speak with the manager about our experience, but his response—“I’m sorry to make you feel bad, but that’s not my intention”—didn’t address our concerns. Quite frankly, it left us wondering if the decision to not give us the sofa table was due to racism, since it was later given to someone else.

To top it off, I ordered the same dish that I’ve had before, but the portion was surprisingly small. This whole experience felt tainted by unprofessional booking practices and a lack of respect for our group. It's disheartening to feel bullied in...