Bar + Block Steakhouse London Hammersmith — Restaurant in London

Where to start ? Sunday 1pm ish. Restaurant is almost empty, 3 tables seated 2 eating. Asked whether we have a reservation, we say no. The manager (black shirts) fluff for a few minutes checking the system before giving us a table by the entrance (like there is an avalanche of bookings and he is doing us a huge favour). 2 adults, 3 small children, yet that same manager gives us only 2 child menus and nothing to colour. I had to ask 2 times to get it. Place had opened only a couple of weeks ago, yet we are given stained menus. We order for the children first; waiter is friendly and doing his best but clearly hasn’t been trained at all. He doesn’t know his menu (albeit rather limited to steaks, burgers and kids menu). Pic of kids menu attached: we didn’t get the starter at all, we didn’t get the juices that comes with it (never got asked which juice we wanted) and the burger which comes with fries simply never got any fries. Kids food came a good 20 mins after, which was already slow considering everything was pre-cooked or pre-prepared. After ordering our steaks, 30 minutes + passes and still nothing. Meanwhile 2, maybe 3 tables seated. Staff is idling, not knowing what to do or how. 3 kitchen staff are arguing so loud we can hear them (we are sitting right in front of them) yet not much food is coming out. Barman is bored to death. I finally go talk to a manager telling him this is totally unacceptable; let me pay for my children food and leave. He apologies and asked the kitchen how many more minutes: he comes back and swear it will be 4 mins (by that point it was 13:55 mind you). 6 mins later he comes with a small bowl of supposedly Rocket and Parmesan salad (no parmesan, 5g of rocket and 3 pieces of rock hard tomatoes smothered in an awful industrial vinaigrette), announcing that the chips are coming (!?) Another 3 mins later steaks finally come: Mine is supposedly a circle cut fillet, marinated in garlic, medium rare. Way overcooked (minimum medium well to well done), chewy and not tender, barely edible with their chimichurri sauce. Cold. My wife is supposedly a piece of fillet, medium rare (she wanted some bearnaise but she never was offered): cooking OKish but dry, not anywhere near tender as you would expect from fillet. Few more minutes later the supposedly triple cooked chips come: bland, tasteless, soggy excuse of frozen chips, so generously served we choke on them (i think I counted about 10 per serving !). Meanwhile our kids have finished their food long ago and were kept waiting for their (oh shocking!) ice cream included in their menus. We timed 14 mins between the waiter taking that order and the ice creams being served, including a good 3 mins sitting on the pass (in our direct sight) with still 3 waiters idling, the barman still bored to death, two managers fluffing with the computers (probably managing the avalanche of future bookings). We even witnessed one of the kitchen staff taking the time to come out to get some ice from the bar for his own drink, passing by the ice creams, yet doing nothing about it. Cherry on the top: by the time we were finished with our awful food and ready to leave, the garlic mushrooms finally show up. Understandably loosing my patience, I tell the waiter “do you think we still need that?”; he replies “I don’t know, it’s up to you!”. The first manager told us earlier we wouldn’t pay, yet we couldn’t wait to finally finish this excruciating experience. That guy disappeared at some point, and the other one never ever came to talk to us, literally hiding behind his computer screen (albeit only few meters away).

I haven’t had such a terrible experience in a long time, in London or anywhere in the UK. Everything is bad: the food, the service, the management.

Coming from Whitbread (owner of Premier Inn and Costa), recently bought a lot of billions by Coca-Cola it is utterly...

What a service with poor attitude.

After being given the menu by our server (let's not put her name although it is on our receipt), she came back later to take our order.

My husband asked: "can we also have the beverage menu please?" Server: "What is that?" My husband: "can we have the beverage menu? the drinks menu?" Server: "I don't know what that is" My husband: "another menu that you probably have with wine, beers, cocktail on it ???" Server: "Ah yes, we have that"

She brings the menu.

After ordering our drinks, we order the food including a "Beef Dripping Triple-Cooked Chunky Chips'. She explained that this is chips with small pieces of beef in them. My husband explained to her what that dish normally is and that doesn't include 'small pieces of beef in them. She insists otherwise. My husband politely explain that she might be mistaken as 'beef dripping is not small pieces of beef' and she agrees to go and check with the Chefs (she never came back to us regarding that...). Same thing as we ordered a side dish of 'Truffle-Flavoured Mac + Cheese' and even pointed on the menu as by then we understood that she was struggling with her menu knowledge. We did receive the 'Mac Cheese Bites' instead.

Let's jump everything else that went wrong with her service (she seems like a lovely lady but she has to keep her composure if customer service is what she wants to do), and get into when she brought the bill at the end. As we decided to explain to her (politely) what was wrong with her bill, she couldn't understand and casually said "I overcharged you only for the sweet potato as if that was okay to do so. We asked to bring the menu so that we can show what went wrong with her billing and service:

She simply snapped. "Listen, she said. I do not have the time to bring you the menu. Simply pay your bill. I am trying to do my best and the restaurant is busy (restaurant is 2/3 empty with 5 visible floor staff). I don't know how you do in France (she says) but here it doesn’t work like that. I am busy and I will let my manager deal with it."

I am still struggling to understand where on earth she made a connection with France as none of us are from there and even if that has been the case, what was the connection with our experience?

The duty manager was brought in. She apologised on behalf of the house and did her upmost to salvage the situation whilst (our server went outside for a cigarette). I cannot fault what the manager did and she even insisted that she will not take a payment until we are satisfied and leave happy. As I explained to the duty manager, this was a spoiled evening for us and even for our server. Surely, the server will believe somehow that she was wronged somewhere by us. Whilst we will believe that having lived in Hammersmith for +10 years and having been nicely pleased to see what you as a business did with that place when you rebuild it and open few months ago. We finally decided to come in today for our Saturday night out. We were given reasons not to ever...

I went for a meal with my friend for a catch-up. When we entered, the restaurant was empty (maybe 1 or 2 customers). There were about 30-40 tables which were empty. The gentlemen who welcomed us told us that they have a booking for 20 so we would have to wait, to which we said that’s fine. We were seated straight away and given menus. We were greeted by our waitress pleasantly at first. The waitress took our order and all seemed fine at this point. Our food came within 15-20 minutes. We asked for sauces and these were brought promptly and I also requested a hot pepper sauce which I was told would be coming out soon as it had to be made/put together by the chef in the kitchen - this never made it to the table. Once we finished our meal, our waitress came to collect our plates. She then asked if we would like to see the desert menu, to which we replied yes. She gave use the main menu and after a few minutes came to ask us if we had decided what we want for desert. As I was talking and catching up with my friend, we apologised and said no we had not decided yet. The waitress walked away and brought over desert menu and told us there were more choices on this menu. We were looking at the menu and also talking whilst we wanted to wait a bit before deciding on which desert we would pick as we had just eaten our main meal. The waitress approaches within 3 minutes again asking us if we had decided what we wanted and my friend says we will look at the menu now and decide right now - the waitress rolls her eyes, huffs and puffs as she walks away - basically showing us that she’s annoyed with us - however, it was rude, unprofessional and very child-like. I’m not sure if this was because she wanted to get rid of us or if she was advised to serve us and attend to us non-stop to make us leave - I’ve never seen anything like it. All whilst bearing in mind, there was nobody coming in desperate for a table and there were about 30 tables free for any customers that did want to come.

We were quite shocked with her behaviour and decided to ask for the bill. She came with a credit card machine - did not ask us how we would like to pay and held it out with no verbal communication. We paid and left.

We would never come back here and do not recommend anyone coming here. Their staff need training in how to give good service but something tells me this restaurant doesn’t...