Busaba Covent Garden — Restaurant in London

Usually I have a great time at Busaba, Covent Garden, so much so, that I recommend it to my whole network. Last Friday, I went to Busaba around 8:30pm without a reservation due to making an on spot plan with some guests who had come to visit. On arriving to the restaurant, we followed procedure and let the host know that we are seeking a table for 5, and she said its a 40 min wait. On overselling the establishment to my guests, we agreed to wait. I went in to just inform her that I will just take a stroll with my guests while we wait for our table and she insisted we cannot move from there. Fine, I can still understand the reasoning behind that. What I can't understand is what was the tone she was taking with me. It was rude and blunt and just not polite. Definitely gave a sour taste in my mouth before the evening even started. We waited on speaking to the host again when the time was up she says, "we're waiting for our reservation, if they do not come, I will seat you" in nasty attitude. Firstly, why didn't you inform us of these contingencies to begin with and what's with the rudeness. I was absolutely livid at the way she was speaking to me and my party, definitely a first for Busaba. Ultimately the reservation did not fall through and we received a table after waiting for nearly an hour. Now we were a party of 5 people and she was asking us all to squish into a table that clearly fits 2x2. We simply asked her for an extra chair in an establishment which began to empty up, so there were chairs available. However, she responded with, "its the best she can do and if we need a chair we have to wait some more." At this point we truly cba, we wanted to speak to the manager, and apparently that's her too. Then we asked for a different table all together, which was another thing she couldn't accommodate at which point my guests aka my uncle started chatting with her and she ended up giving us a different table with the same 2x2 seating. We asked the waiter if we could take the chair from the other table and he went and checked to see if anyone was coming which his manager thought was and told us we're good to take it. So clearly the manager was set out to give us poor customer service that night. She just ended giving it to the wrong customer. Hence the review. Since I couldn't get service up to Busaba standard at the restaurant, hopefully Busaba can take note of my experience and rectify the needful because I love Busaba and have been a recurring customer for 8 years now. Even the food that day was okay not the best we've had and I've come at rush hour and still been served impeccable dishes. However, not all bad news, I do want to give a special thank you to the waiter for not only smiling and behaving friendly but for also trying accommodate our needs and turn the night around for us. Some piece of advice for the manager: A smile goes a...

Extremely disappointing! If I could give this place 0 stars I would. I had booked this place for a birthday dinner, party of 6. The first table we were given was ridiculous as it was all squashy, no proper chairs to put coats/scarves on. Only 5 of us would fit round it comfortably. We asked to be moved and was told no as everywhere else was reserved. We said well how can 6 of us comfortably eat when there’s physically no space for us and our coats. We saw an empty table with 6 chairs and asked to be sat there however we were told “no that’s a reserved table only for 8ppl” (there were only 6 chairs). After waiting further 10 mins, we finally were moved to a table for….4! So 6 of us all had to squash round this table. All the waiters could see we were sat uncomfortably but didn’t bother to cater. A small table for 2 next to us was empty so we asked if we could merge both tables. RELUCTANTLY the waiter allowed and finally after 30 mins from arriving we were sat comfortably (& that was us only who made that happen, no staff helped)!! Birthday dinner didn’t start off well clearly, then only got worse as we then saw a group of 6 ppl fill up the table we initially asked for to which we were told it was for a table of 8!! So all waiters lied to us basically. We also never got asked if we had any allergies so when ordering we had 3 waiters re-take our orders due to the lack of communication plus lack of business policy to ask first and foremost about allergies!!! That is life threatening, imagine if that happened to someone else who was an anonymous assessor OR even worse if I had an allergic reaction!! Then it got worse by the portion sizes. The taste was nice however for the price you pay the portions were despicable!! Mid food we asked for another pad Thai because it was literally fit for only 2 ppl. The 2nd pad thai we ordered came to our table when our plates were taken away due to us being finished!!!! How ridiculous is that. They obviously forgot about it. The service was atrocious. As a birthday girl or any excuse to come for dinner, it was THE worst experience ever, I would never come back to that restaurant. There was no customer service at all not even a slight discount to apologise for all the bad service we got throughout...

We visited on Sunday afternoon following the London Landmarks Half. Group of four of us, arrived at 3pm and were grateful to see they had quieted post Lunch rush to a mostly empty sitting as we were hungry following a big morning.

Regardless of the lack of covers we were seated after waiting 5 minutes, given menus and then left to our own devices for half an hour with servers walking around and past us not checking in or doing anything else!

We had to call out to order.

Our drinks arrived after another five minutes. We had ordered three cokes and water as well as a jug of water for the table. Only the cokes arrived. We had to ask again after a few minutes for the water and then just grabbed a glass from another table as they had not set four glasses for us.

Following this our meals finally arrived and were lovely. We got the green curry (vegetarian), spring rolls, por pia jay, duck noodles and classic pad Thai. All were solid iterations of classic dishes though quiet lacking in flavour or complexity. What really undersold the whole experience was the lack of hospitality in a restaurant which purports itself to be a higher end restaurant.

For all the fluff, awkwardness of having to chase to order, to receive our drinks, we just felt like we were a nuisance when we would have rather been celebrating following a big running event!

With a fifteen minute turn around time on food we arrived at 3pm to finally be eating at around 4pm. Lastly a group of 4 was seated right next to us as our drinks arrived and were already into their food and drink just as we received ours.

Really...