Brat x Climpson's Arch — Restaurant in London

Sadly this was the second poor experience I had with the Brat team. 1st was at the main restaurant in Shoreditch where a whole course was not put through and the second was today at Climpson's Arch.

First strange thing is being told to take a picture of the menu board at the entrance rather than having something where you're seated. I suppose that's to reduce waste I guess so no biggie but those with dead batteries beware that you'll need to build a memory palace as you enter.

Starters were good. The asparagus was tasty, the scallop was too and the mussels with chorizo were also tasty. However. 6 very slim and short sticks of asparagus and a small puddle of Stracciatella for £15.50 was not good value. Nor was £15.50 for a single scallop. Yep, just one measly scallop for £15.50. So so far we've spent 31 quid for six stalks of asparagus and a single small scallop. The mussels fared a bit better in terms of quantity for £19 but needed the extra bread to bulk up another fairly anemic showing. £53.50 including the bread so far.

After finishing the starters, we had our cutlery replaced and proceeded to wait about 30 minutes for our main. This is a totally unacceptable amount of time to be waiting between courses. No one asked to check on us or offer us another drink while we waited. Eventually asked a member of staff to find out what was going on and got told 2-5 mins, they were just plating and I finally got asked if I'd like a drink. Asked for a Bloody Mary. 10 minutes later I asked again and another few after that we finally got our steak. The Bloody Mary never turned up. The steak was overcooked and tough.

All in, about £150 for two. Really poor service, miserly portions and hit and miss quality depending on what we ordered. The first time I went to Brat years ago I was blown away. Seems like they've really dropped the ball of late. Most likely...

What an amazing experience we had eating in this very welcoming and atmospheric restaurant - there certainly was a buzz about the place.

The open kitchen takes centre stage on the left as you walk in and is a hive of activity - with many chefs very busy and focused cooking over an open fire - no mean feat with outside temperatures almost hitting 30C!! The brigade did seem very relaxed too - the Italian head chef leads with aplomb and they all seem to know exactly what they are doing 👏👏

From the off the food was sensational. We tried the chorizo and morcilla sausages both made inhouse - best I’ve ever had - they just melted in your mouth -the beef tartare was a delight - so flavoursome . The tomato salad with sardines was very good too as was the grilled bread with anchovies - peas and asparagus dishes were superb too. Beautiful cockles. Loved the hispi cabbage with cheese - great texture and taste. We all loved the peppers too.

The stars of the show were the homemade sausages and the fish, John Dory and wild gilt head Bream - both fish were expertly cooked - with the flesh falling off the bone - it tasted very buttery with a hint of lemon - fortunately the fish were treated with respect and not overpowered by some mad flavour - less is more

We thought we were too full for dessert but we succumbed and shared a burnt cheesecake and a brûlée with a lovely crunchy sugared topping and a surprise at the bottom of it - dig deep !! Both were amazing

The service was very good considering how busy it was - a big shout out to Jonah, Tom , Melissa and the team who were all so warm and welcoming. All in all a wonderful dining experience in a relaxed and quirky venue...

The staff are cold and uninviting, at times rude, and also have an arrogance about them which I can't quite understand given the rest of our dining experience to come was quite dire.

We made a passing comment that the place was cold and drafty however instead of trying to rectify the issue or show some empathy our waitress informs us "well you can come and help me clear tables if you want" in a dead pan manner then walked off. No one found this particularly funny if this was intended to be a joke. There was a heater next to our table which she could have switched on but didn't.

Our first drinks took a long time to arrive and to be fair to them our starters arrived very quickly. About 2.5 hours in our mains finally arrived, this obviously felt like a very long time with the poor service and cold area of the restaurant and many of our group made comments about how late the food was coming.

Me and my partner ordered the sirloin steak sharer (£80) which came with a side of potatoes and peppers. The food arrived cold. The steak was tasteless. The potatoes were cold, hard and leathery. The best part of the dish were the peppers. We complained about the food to which we received no apology (this was the waitress manager/host) and they warmed our food up. After warming up the food was marginally better but I've had a better steak at Weatherspoons' steak night back when I was a student.

The other people in our group ordered mutton and the crab sharer. No one gave a brilliant review and everything was "yeaaaah, it was okaaaay" which is shocking considering the price of the food.

The whole experience was hugely disappointing and I would not recommend...