El Pastor London Bridge — Restaurant in London

Went to El Pastor yesterday for the first time as I had heard so many great things about the restaurant. I do understand that it is very busy so there were only a few seats that were left for walk ins. I asked to sit in a specific seat and was told that I can't sit there as they'd sit a walk in that has 3 guest, we were only 2. This is fair enough, so we proceeded to sit on a 2-person table. 30mins later, they seated a 2-person party in the seat I asked for. When questioned as to why I was declined the seat because of the size of my party and it was given to someone else, I was told "because they booked for 2-people, they can sit there" didn't make any sense to me as they were a party of 2 but I left it as it was a long day and I was really hungry. The waitress took our orders and the food came out. The first few plates were great and really tasty however, we were constantly disturbed by the waitress as she kept on pulling away our plate from our table. No exaggeration she would come over every 4 mins to take our plates constantly disturbing us. There was a point I was having the last potato from my small bowl, got it on my fork, whilst my hand was still hovering over the bowl, the waitress had taken it which I find so bad. I prefer to be given some time before plates are taken, also ask the customer if they're finish and wait for the food to get in their mouth before snatching the plates. All dishes were great but the lamb quesadillas which was on the special menu, were so salty to the point that we could eat it. Tried to finish it but couldn't. Unfortunate as the rest of the food was great but with that service and the salty quesadillas, I wasn't impressed. The cherry on the top when I was catching up with my friend, we were asked to leave the restaurant as they wanted the table for...

Great food, great ingredients, great service but the portions are on the small side for the price. Was really excited to try this place given that it was opened by The Barrafina crew. We arrived around noon on a Saturday and were quickly seated but within half an hour the entire restaurant was hopping.

As soon as we sat down we were given an assortment of 3 salsas which were delicious but there was a marked absence of tortilla chips. We even tried to scope out the menu to see if we could buy some but didn't find anything - only later into our meal did we see other people having chips and wish we knew how they scored them.

Ordered the Frozen Margaritas - and while these drinks were strong I wish they were a little weaker and 2 or 3 times the size (I guess living in States previously has of ruined me)! They were nicely rimmed with salt.

We also started with the Tuna tostadas which were small - but really well loaded up with plenty of flavourful fresh tuna and guacamole.

Next I tried 3 tacos - The signature El Pastor which was amazing with lots of rich flavours and pineapple, the chorizo with potato which was just ok and finally the pastor de pescado a fish taco that was very good. I thought the same thing about the tacos - I wish they were bigger, perhaps bigger corn tortillas than the 7 cm diameter range would be enough.

My husband had the gringa quesadilla which had the excellent pork meat but it looked like and open face tortilla (not the quesadillas that I know) that was maybe 1/3 of the size of a normal quesadilla. He also had the grilled corn which was very good but also small.

I finished my meal off with some Mezcal - they have quite the impressive menu.

Overall great flavours but still felt a little hungry when I left which I don't normally do after...

Edited update- The below cut and paste response regarding the cover charge is actually laughable as that was only one issue! In addition, they have not addressed the charging us for the ‘free birthday cake’,bringing us two large guacamoles and charging us for the little dips they offered us!! Lots of additional hidden costs on an already overpriced meal!! AVOID,AVOID,AVOID!!

We had a 12.5 % service charge (which is standard in London these days) but IN ADDITION a cover charge that wasn’t explained to us and I don’t know what it is for, tap water? I think the cover charge is a bit of a joke if you’re also adding a 12.5% service charge!

We ordered 2 guacamole and they brought us the larger portions without clarification so we didn’t know until checking the bill. Asked us if we wanted some sauces but didn’t realise again, that we had to pay £5 in addition for them too.

To top it off,it was my friend’s birthday and they said we could pick a free dessert and then noticed on the bill after that they charged us £7.50 for the free birthday dessert! !!!

I think it’s extremely over priced and the little additions that aren’t explained seem like they are tricking us.

The streak quesadilla was extremely dry and the steak over cooked and the tacos were average at best.

The toilets were pretty horrible too. No soap and dirty. We decided to not use the toilets and wait until we went somewhere else. So In summary a very premium price we paid for a very grungy and...