Bar Beach Grill Restaurant Lewisham — Restaurant in London

Without a shadow of a doubt, the worst restaurant I’ve ever been to in London, or the rest of the world. I’ve had better service and drinks at fast food restaurants in the most seedy parts of south east London. I was enticed to visit by the attractive looking cocktail list, as I do love a rum punch and anything sweet and boozy. I booked well in advance and was really excited to visit. As soon as I put my foot through the door I felt let down. I opened my mouth to apologise for being 10 minutes late for my booking due to road works. Before I could finish my sentence the server snapped that the time would be taken off my booking and looked at her watch sighing and muttering under her breath. We were “seated” a table halfway out of the doorway and with the menu table cutting into most of our seating our area making it cold and uncomfortable. I asked if we could be seated at another table for two that was empty but she said it was reserved for a large party. 90 minutes later said table remained unoccupied. We were not sure if we were going to eat so ordered one daiquiri each. This is all we had for one whole hour, despite several attempts to try and catch the attention of one of the servers. We were blatantly and rudely ignored, and for a lot of our time waiting had cleaning fluid sprayed all over us and our drinks as staff frantically tried to clean as it was so obviously overbooked. The uncomfortable seating and lack of service meant I had a lot of time to look around (I was trying to get their attention after all) and I noticed that there was only one person making cocktails. And literally everyone in there was drinking cocktails. Absolutely ridiculous - not the staff member’s fault but they need more staff to make drinks. Except they can’t have more staff as the space wouldn’t accommodate them. The venue is small and they’ve crammed in way too many tables to make it comfortable to sit in and this has obviously impacted on the service as I’ve read so many poor reviews since my visit about how slow it is. The greedy proprietor has massively overfilled the space to cram as many patrons as possible in at once and there aren’t enough staff. As I said more staff wouldn’t fit in as they are all getting in each others way as it is. There are more people preparing food than drinks so seeing other people being served the food came out quicker than drinks. After a long and thirsty hour we were able to order more drinks and we ordered two each so that we wouldn’t have such a long wait again. Both took ages to come again and the servers seemed to have forgotten our order and as we had an empty table and were looking around (bored) someone who was likely the manager pointed to us saying we were ready to order. We had ordered! Eventually our drinks came, they weren’t particularly tasty and very overpriced for the quality. While halfway through the first one a member of staff came over and abruptly asked if we were ready to pay. I asked if they needed the table back and they said yes so I stated that I wasn’t willing to pay for all of the drinks we had ordered as we didn’t have time to consume them due to their unacceptably slow service and asked for one to be deducted from the bill and also asked service to be removed. No apology. Advice to manager - take some tables out to improve the ambience, put less pressure on your staff, have more staff working to improve service in a space where they can actually work and keep up with orders. And clean your toilets when they flood, they were disgusting. And I slipped and almost fell on a lime that stayed on the floor for the 90 minutes I was unlucky enough to have there. You...

Why I will never come here again. On the 30th of October 2022. I went to the Bar beach grill for a birthday celebration. As I have heard good reviews from this place, I expected the service to be somewhat exceptional. I was quite shocked when I first got there with my family when the staff continuously ignored me for 10 minutes as I waited to be seated. This was frustrating but I let this slide. When the staff finally chose to acknowledge me, I told her that I had a booking for 19:00. She looked at her diary but still could still not find our booking.

When she went to tell the manager Barbra about our booking this is when things started to take a turn.

Barbra told us that we should go away and come back 40 minutes later to be seated. At this point I’m thinking does she not understand that we have a booking?

She then went on to tell me that something shocking which my ears are still burning from “we have a 16-person booking, so we are unable to serve you right now” How could Barbra prioritise our booking for 16 people who had not even arrived whilst we were waiting.

Barbra didn’t seem to care about this although we had a booking we were not accommodated for.

In any situation I would leave at this point but if you’re planning someone’s birthday it’s not that easy to walk away.

After Barbra realised that we were not going anywhere she lined some tables up in an awkward area in the restaurant creating a narrow space which people could not get through. This was very uncomfortable.

Barbra offered us free drinks to makes things up for the inconvenience and said she will move us once the customers on another table have left which would be in 20 minutes. Okay sounds like fair play but how did Barbra know the customers were leaving in 20 minutes? In short this did not happen in fact we were waiting over 40 minutes. Barbra avoided us the time because she knew she had made an empty promise.

The table we were situated on was tacky, the cutlery had food on them, the menus had drinks marks all over them. Like I said the only reason we stayed was because of our brother’s birthday.

After 50 minutes we were allowed to move tables, finally!! It was good we now had a decent table but it now 9 o’clock and we had a booking for 19:00 ?? okay moving on. After waiting 2 hours and moving to another table. We finally ordered our food but there were discrepancies. The food had already come but Barbra is now saying the Mac N cheese has run out. At this point we are becoming very annoyed with this service. Barbra also then tells us another 20 minutes later when we are looking for our mixed vegetables that this has run out also. In fact, the staff told us that they had not been serving this all day.

My story should be a lot longer than this but in all short. We stayed at this restaurant from 19:00 – 23:00 4 hours and not because anyone came late or the food took too long to come, it was because of the sheer unorganised staff who don’t bother to clean cutlery and prioritise people from their choosing. We were not difficult customers I can assure you. THIS WAS JUST A CASE OF POOR service, so I just had to take my time to write this review as it is literally the worst service I have received to this date.

This restaurant ruined my brother’s birthday and in future I will warn people of this place that they do not cook their food properly or bother to clean their cutlery. So, you have been warned.

I’ve added pictures I took on the night to further highlight the general waiting, service...

Food Poisoning Incident – Bar Beach Grill, Lewisham (22nd June 2025)

On the evening of Saturday, 22nd June 2025, my sister and I decided to visit Bar Beach Grill in Lewisham for what we hoped would be a relaxing dinner and quality time together. We had heard mixed reviews, but decided to give it a try ourselves.

Upon arriving, we were greeted by friendly staff, and the atmosphere seemed pleasant enough. We both ordered meals that included grilled chicken, jollof rice, plantain, and salad. The food arrived in good time, though I recall that the chicken had a slightly strange smell and texture. It appeared slightly undercooked near the bone, and the rice tasted somewhat reheated or not freshly made. Despite these concerns, we ate most of our meals as we didn’t want to waste food and didn’t expect what would happen next.

By the early hours of Sunday morning, both my sister and I began experiencing severe abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting. We initially thought it was a stomach bug, but the symptoms worsened rapidly. We each had multiple episodes of diarrhea and vomiting throughout the day, accompanied by fever, chills, and muscle cramps. The pain was so intense that we were unable to leave our beds.

By midday Sunday, my sister became severely dehydrated and dizzy, and I had to call NHS 111 for advice. They advised us to visit urgent care if symptoms persisted. We ended up visiting the local urgent treatment centre later that evening. The attending clinician suspected food poisoning and recommended we both be tested for bacterial infection. We were given oral rehydration salts and advised to rest and avoid solid food.

For the next three days, we were both unable to work, attend our responsibilities, or eat properly. We experienced ongoing gastrointestinal distress, fatigue, and overall weakness. We also incurred costs related to transportation to urgent care, medication, and lost wages due to missed work.

The only food we both ate in common that day was from Bar Beach Grill. We strongly believe their food was the source of this distressing and dangerous episode. I am writing this not only to raise a formal complaint, but also to ensure proper food hygiene inspections are carried out to prevent this from happening to anyone else.

This experience was deeply traumatic, and no one expects a simple meal out to result in such a serious health issue. I urge the management of Bar Beach Grill to review their food safety practices and for the relevant authorities to investigate this matter thoroughly.

Some of the waitress had a bad attitude a part from one individual but can’t remember her name but big you up.

This place need to be investigated by the food...