Baccalà Seafood & Wine - Restaurant London Bridge — Restaurant in London

This is a somewhat delayed review as we attended the restaurant shortly before Christmas 2024. I’ve been going back and forth as to whether to post a review which is unfortunately negative, but seeing as how many food options are in the area, the mark up of dishes in the restaurant, and older similar reviews (e.g. hair in food and poor service) I thought it’d be fair to share my experience.

4 of us attended the restaurant for dinner on a Saturday. To start with the positives, the food and the drinks were very tasty (we had a variety of dishes including bread and olives, starters and mains). Unfortunately the meal went progressively downhill after ordering. To recap:

Service started okay but there was some aggressive and consistent upselling. Despite ordering a starter each plus the bread and olives, the waiter kept pushing for a 5th starter for all of us to share. When two of us said we wouldn’t be drinking the waiter acted as if there was something wrong. He also asked that we stopped talking amongst ourselves so that he could discuss the wine list (by the bottle). The upselling continued until the end (e.g. asking to re order our drinks when we weren’t halfway done; shock that we didn’t want dessert - which I will come on to in a second when explaining why we wanted to leave - etc).

I found a hair in my main and, immediately reassuring him that it was absolutely fine, asked if it would be possible to have the same dish remade. The customer service from various staff members here was shocking. First, we were sitting by the kitchen and we had to see a discussion (with some pointing and glaring) about the hair situation. I started feeling pretty uncomfortable but eventually the waiter came, apologised and said a new dish was being made.

We weren’t offered any complimentary drinks or meal (which is common practice) which would have been fine if next, the manager wouldn’t have come to the table and said “I am sorry that you found a hair in the food and we are remaking the dish, but I can 100% guarantee you that it didn’t come from the kitchen”. I was pretty uncomfortable by that point because I thought he had come to apologise.

It didn’t end there. When he left the table (with me saying thank you and no problem, lol) my friend and I said that to each other that my hair was tied up and gelled, so it couldn’t be mine, and my friend pointed up amongst us that we hadn’t even blamed anyone. The hair could have simply come from a waiter carrying multiple dishes back and forth, cleaning up tables, etc. The same manager who was nearby then CAME BACK to reiterate how it could not have been their fault.

My food (which was delicious) arrived by the time everyone had finished their dishes. We decided not to have dessert because the atmosphere was very uncomfortable. Again, the waiter acted as if there was something wrong.

Feeling quite frustrated by this point we asked that service charge was removed from the bill. We got INTERROGATED for this. It took over 20 minutes to get the bill. When the waiter asked why, we explained it to him (even though he was the person who had been serving us) and he said he would speak to his manager beforehand. 5-10 minutes later he said his manager would be around soon to discuss the bill. I literally said to him “We don’t want to discuss anything. Please can you bring it over so we can pay and leave?” Long story short the manager never came.

My partner and my friends partner had to go upstairs to talk to him while we waited outside. They came out after 15 minutes or so, since there have been various issues with the bill.

Overall, there were no issues with the food but it was such an uncomfortable experience that I would rather eat at a less nice restaurant / lesser quality to avoid a situation...

I visited Baccala on 10/08/2020 for a date. We had pre booked an outdoor table which we were assured we would get if we arrived on time. We arrived a few minutes early to be disappointed that there wasn’t an outside table available and that it was first come first serve. I always thought the whole point of booking something was to avoid the issue of first come first serve. Either way, this was a minor issue but it definitely set the tone. We were seated next to the kitchen downstairs which was a nice atmosphere anyway. We ordered three dishes between us, a cuttle fish and avocado salad starter, a courgette and bottarga pasta and a fried squid main. The starter was visually impressive but quickly disappointed. The avocado was rock hard, the pieces of cuttlefish were small and over cooked, the lumps of raw red onion were too big and overpowered all other flavours, the addition of the puréed avocado felt like an after thought. The best part were the prawns which were well cooked and had good flavour. It almost felt like they were the main part of the dish rather than the cuttlefish. It sounded great on paper but turned out to be a sum of poorly prepared ingredients. Moving on, the pasta dish lacked any flavour other than salt, we were told this was the nature of the bottarga however the salt flavour came from the green purée base of the sauce. The dried bits of courgette offered nothing but a small change in texture and I really didn’t notice the bottarga. The squid was actually well cooked, we enjoyed this the most. However, coating it in black rice didn’t offer any additional flavour to regular batter. In a seaside pub I’d have been happy with this for about half the price, £16 seemed steep given how basic the offering was. To conclude, this was very disappointing especially given the steep prices. I feel you pay more for the location, drinks and atmosphere than you do the food. If you care more about really good Italian food there are many options which I prefer with much lower prices. It’s also worth noting we ate here during the government promotion which gave us £20 off our meal, even after that I still felt it was...

Such an underrated restaurant in London and Bermondsey street. Food is just so fresh, delicious and high quality with no-fuss.

Service is always excellent. Nothing bad to say about this place. It’s on the pricier end, but if price is no issue, this is the first place I recommend on Bermondsey street.

Inside it’s also quite cosy and can be romantic for dates.

You can tell they really care about the food there they serve.

EDIT: I must add this edit. More recently, I was craving fresh good quality oysters and knew I had to visit. Despite being a Thursday and super packed, the staff were very kind to accommodate to me and my puppy (Dave). I usually avoid taking Dave with me to smaller packed spaces, but I just wanted to have a quick pick-me-up snack and leave. Didn't think I'd be in for any more than 20 or so minutes. Unfortunately there was an incident with an incredibly rude guest who hurled disrespectful words at me and my dog, Dave. Dave was feeling a bit overwhelmed so yelped occasionally. Fortunately it was already at the end of my meal and I was leaving soon. I must say I was incredibly thankful to how the manager handled the situation. When the rude guest demanded I leave the establishment with my dog, the manager informed the guest that the restaurant had a dog-friendly policy and confirmed I had a right to be there with my dog.

While it was an incredibly distressing situation for me and I left very shaken up as I left, the professionalism with which the manager approached the situation was very much appreciated by me. I wish that the other female staff would have taken the same approach, but I do understand she may have felt a bit uncertain in the situation.

It was additionally kind and respectful of the manager to follow me out of the restaurant to make sure I was okay despite him having an incredibly busy evening and an entirely full house.

This kind of service and positive experience tends to stay with customers and completely overshadows any negative situation. Big thanks from me and Dave ;) to the manager whose name I...