Booking Office 1869 — Restaurant in London

We decided to give the Booking Office our custom to round off our wedding anniversary celebration weekend in London.

I have often considered visiting but not done so because of the prices. Also the mainly glowing reviews indicate that this is (supposed to be) a quality establishment.

Sadly we have been less than impressed by our experience. We had an hour before our train so planned to order a glass of wine and some picky bits. The pricing of the wine is such that it's actually better money sense to buy a whole bottle, or your options are 125ml glass or 375ml carafe. The first bottle we tried to order of a £42 rioja blanco was not available, so instead we ordered a £52 organic reserva Portuguese wine.

In a place as fancy and gorgeous as this you trust that the staff are well trained and have your best interests at heart. So when the waitress eventually brought the bottle of wine over, and we saw it was from the correct winery we accepted the wine. It was only on drinking it, and then further scrutinizing the bottle that we realised we had been served a wine from the correct winery but it was younger, not organic, and not reserva. We raised this politely with the first waiter who came to clear our plates and he got quite flustered, apologised, and never returned. We then raised it with the next waiter who acknowledged that they should not be miss-selling wine and after some consultation with his boss offered us a 15% discount and the option to pay the bill without service charge.

Whilst I am glad they did acknowledge the error I feel the 15% discount was them doing the least they could to rectify the issue. It's absolutely not ok for a restaurant, especially one charging the prices they do, to list on their menu a superior product but knowingly serve an inferior one. How many other customers have they pulled this trick on????

As for the food, we ordered truffle and parmesan fries, smoked cods roe and the charcuterie platter. We were informed they had no charcuterie available. The fries were as good as fries can be, but for £11 for a small portion I would expect nothing less! The cods roe was also perfectly fine.

The space is absolutely stunning, and the ambiance lovely. It's just a real shame that for us the promise of the Booking Room experience was not met, with out-of-stocks, suspicious miss-selling practices, and less than quality service.

Next time, I'll take my...

Shamefully didn’t take any photos sadly, but was on a meal business dinner just prior to Christmas with one of our supplies who took the effort to come down and see us in London. So, me being tasked with finding a nice place to have dinner near King’s Cross, this was in the perfect spot accessible via the grand platforms of St. Pancreas which certainly sets the upmarket theme.

The ambience and atmosphere is quite exquisite, nicely lit with these classic tall ceilings, the stunning illuminated bar all nicely balanced with pot plants. Obviously depending on the time you come here, but it’s hard to not notice London’s hustle and bustle vibing here for cocktails and drinks either before or after a business trip.

There’s different menus throughout the day/week and even seasonal and special menus depending on the time of year, not forgetting a Sunday Roast menu too. Booking for dinner, the menu isn’t massive, which isn’t a bad thing. Better to be small and selective and specialise right? But does have enough to suit most people’s tastes with a limited selection for vegans.

There’s items from the grill, sharing starters like cured meats, oysters and olives among others with a selection of mains including pasta and fish dishes. I myself going for the Cashew Hummus to start and the Booking Office Cheeseburger which comes medium with smoked bacon and their own sauce.

Not forgetting a pairing dessert menu which is always good to see. There’s a large range of spirits, malt whiskeys and cocktails to be had with crafted selected ales and beers.

Booking is recommended and was fine to do online. Sadly two of our party had to drop out last minute but they were very accommodating and even allowed us to stay a little more beyond our time, but do expected to be moved if very busy and been allotted a time slot.

The service is amazing, especially if you get to meet the Italian chap there who is such a character, he certainly makes your visit memorable. (Forgive me as I didn’t get your name! - we wasn’t paying so didn’t see the receipt). But all the staff were attentive, knowledgeable and more than happy to help.

Ideal for a date night, small gathering or business visit, but do expect it to be a little on louder side during...

I want to preface this with saying me and my husband worked in the service industry for 10 years, we are very chill go with the flow customers. I have never made a review before but I felt like this needed to be at least expressed in some way. The decor and look of the restaurant is amazing and the food was very good however the service was not what we expected for how much we spent. When we got there out we were greeted by an extremely friendly person at the host stand who made note that we made the reservation and stated it was our honeymoon, he was excited for us and we were in general excited about it being our honeymoon. We were seated and didn’t receive any service for around 20 minutes, which we laughed off but were a little confused. Once a waiter came over she was amazing but we discovered by observation that where we were seated was not her section. Our actual waiter, Lazario, then switched back to our section and our waiter. He was aloof and seemed to blame the table confusion on us. He never came to ask how our food was and never filled our waters without being prompted to by another employee or by one of us. The tables around us were checked in on by those who looked like shift leads or managers but no one came to check on us or ask how we were doing. The cherry on top was as we were leaving. We were waiting behind a large group of seven women who were being helped at the host stand by a man who appeared to be a manager. He was very happy and jovial with the group helping them get their table but when it came to helping us his demeanor changed. We told him we just needed to pick up our luggage, and that another employee had put in their luggage closet. We were handing him the bag check ticket and he, in a very annoyed tone, went “what is this”. He did retrieve our bags but we again were not asked how our experience was, and were met with short and harsh service. We went in excited and happy to be ending our honeymoon at Booking Office 1869 but the service fell short for us getting drinks, a starter, appetizer, two entrees and...