Ferny Hill Farm — Restaurant in London

Arrived and waited a few minutes for someone to come over and seat us, none of the waitresses did, even when they saw us. Started to feel uncomfortable, so I went to the till area to ask if we could sit at an empty table, was told yes, not a great start.

Menus came shortly after and thought things would then pick up, waited 10 minutes for the waitress to come back and take our order and noone did until I was able to make eye contact and ask to come over.

Order taken, drinks arrived a few minutes later, ordered a half cream tea which is a pot of tea that comes with a scone, jam and cream. Only got a pot of tea, things going from bad to worse and had a bad feeling about the rest of the service to come.

40 min or so later, still waiting for food and decided to go and ask a waitress what was happening, she said she'd go and find out. Returned a few minutes later to tell us that a few big tables had ordered before us and still haven't got to our ticket yet, it will be another 10-15 minutes, no apology given, that's it.

Throughout our wait loads of other small tables got their food, the waitress herself also had food made and ate it on the table beside us.

Decided to cancel the order and pay for the drinks and leave, again no apology or enquiry as to what went wrong and how it could be made right, just an "ok".

Been coming here sporadically for years and always tipped well for the quality food and friendly service, but today was awful.

We felt like ghosts the second we walked in, right up until we left. Quite hurtful to be made to feel like this when everyone else were being served and having a great time.

Customers should always been made to feel welcome and important and we had none of that, just an afterthought.

Ended up going to Toffs in Muswell Hill for lunch, as breakfast was now out the window.

Served with a smile, food ordered and served swiftly and professionally with a wonderful atmosphere and experience, all done by a single well trained and happy waitress. Should send your staff there for a meal to learn how it's done.

I understand it's a family run affair, but it needs proper training and professional standards, you're serving real customers, not family.

Will never return to...

I can only rate as I have experienced here and reckon these are probably a 3.5 on a better day. Took 40 minutes for the food to arrive and we only stayed because my grandson of 3 years was so hungry. We did hear others who came in being warned of a 45 minute wait, we didn't get that warning. Not an easy task keeping a hungry 3 year old boy settled at a table for that length of time. When the food arrived, my grandons cheese and ham toastie was a cheese an onion toastie. Not a chance we were going to send it back and wait however long for a correction, so scraped the onions out and thankfully he was ok with that. The Big Breakfast. Good and Bad. It was big, no complaint there. The sausages were really really really good, the bacon was very nice and not too salty. The eggs were cooked perfectly, the buttered sourdough was also very nice. Now the Bad.... The beans. Just my preference but i would have preferred them to have been served seperately in a pot as they often are. There was a very generous portion of them and way too much juice. Don't think they were served from a slotted spoon, the plate was dominated by bean juice and infected everthing. They tasted ok though. The 2 inch diameter tomatoes were cooked but served whole, not a great look. The mushrooms were horrible, black, spongy and stewed. Black Pudding.. don't eat that !! so no comment either way on it. The tea was ok, nothing special. Very annoying however that tea for 2 came with a small jug of milk for 2 cups of tea for a pot that done 4-5 cups easily. Had to get a refill from very busy servers.The Black Americano coffee was not good at all though, like really not good. No one would order this twice ever i'm certain. I'm sure if i'd attended during a less busy time when service was normal and orders delieverd accurately, I would have scored them higher. But you can only review what you have experienced and experience is relative to cost too. 2 Big Breakfasts, Cheese and Onion Toastie, tea for 2 and a Coffee, £42 odd. I think 2 stars is fair for our experience here, probably 3.5 with normal service. Could be 4.5 with a better detail to breakfast items and should have been better given top dollar prices. Again great great...

Review update July 2017

We still love coming here often and the staff and service have been excellent. As new parents, we have also realised that it's a great place to bring an infant and kids. There is a baby changing table in the toilets but the only criticism is that it is located in a very tiny ladies cubicle and there is often a queue of people impatiently knocking outside!

We've loved coming here for brunch for many years and often bring guests and family who are staying with us. It's great value for money and has free parking, and although busy we've never had to wait long for a table. It's a really lovely, relaxed place to eat.

However, something has changed over the past few months, as the service is not as quick as it used to be, and the standard of the food has dropped a bit. A few times recently we've been waiting a while for service, clearing the previous table's meals and even had meals served in courses (finishing a whole pot of tea whilst waiting for toast, having a big breakfast served with black pudding coming on a separate plate towards the end of the meal). We repeatedly asked for a napkin to clean the table which was sticky from the previous guests jam and crumbs and in the end made do with cleaning it ourselves with a tissue. I was recently told that I couldn't order poached eggs from the menu because there were none left but scrambled eggs were fine, which is a bit confusing.

I would still continue to come to Ferny Hill as it's a great place, but the management should consider reviewing training and service for...