Hoxley & Porter — Restaurant in London

9:45 - A group of three of enter the bar, thinking it looks like a nice place. It doesn't look very busy, there are a lot of empty tables. Has a nice chilled vibe.

9:45 - A person comes from behind the bar, and shows us to a table.

9:50 - We are brought some menus and decide what we're going to have.

10:00 - No one has taken our order, and we see other people ordering at the bar. So one of our party goes to order at the bar.

10:05 - Person places an order for three cocktails.

10:09 - There is a bit of dispute about the whether the bar has one of the cocktails that is listed on their menu. After the bar tender disappears a few times / comes back a few times and generally confusion, all seems good and the bar tender says sit down and the drinks will be over in a few minutes.

10:30 - A guy we haven't seen before comes over to our table and asks if we would like to place a drinks order. (This is 45 minutes after we were originally seated). We explain that we tried to order at the bar earlier, that we are still waiting for the drinks etc. He goes to the bar to check and says our drinks are coming.

10:35 - The guy and a woman bring over our drinks. There was then more confusion about the cocktail on the menu - turns out we were calling it by it's name, rather than the star-sign it was representing?! As they finally deliver our drinks, we express that we're unhappy with the service and that we've waited for a really long time. (One of our party suggested they didn't want to pay for the drinks / felt we should get a discount for the terrible service).

The two staff members who had brought us our drinks then got very angry. Suggesting it was our fault. They were not apologetic at all. The woman even grabbed the bar order slip to show us that it went through the till at 10:09. So we had only been waiting 25 minutes.

My favourite quote of the night was "but you ordered at the bar, instead of ordering with your waiter". Which was amazing. Apparently we should have waited 45 minutes until the waiter came over, and then ordered??

He also suggested that "it was very busy" and that the wait had been fine. God knows how long you could be waiting if it was actually busy! They should pop to any of the other bars in Angel if they want to see what busy looks like! He also said "we only have 1 person behind the bar, what do you expect?" (I expect that bars in Angel, on a Friday night, should have enough bar tenders to give a reasonable service!).

For a bar that charges a premium, you would expect a much much better service.

We ended up leaving without touching the drinks that they had eventually brought over. Obviously would never...

Lovely spot for Sunday roast in this quaint restaurant that looks and feels like you are dining in an old school 'orient express" style train carriage, from the moment you walk through the long inviting corridor to when you enter the dining area.

Beautiful quaint interior design with wooden features.. A thoughtful layout combining a few small booths with leather seating and wooden table settings nicely spaced out. Low mood lighting, soulful music playing in the background creating such a relaxing ambience away from the hustle and bustle of upper street.

I was fortunate to arrive just as the window booth seating was being vacated. So was able to people watch as I dined.

Although it was very quiet, the service ftom the onset was impeccable, very friendly and attentive service from Sami throughout.

Happy hour, select cocktail menu from 4-7pm. I had a gin, proscecco combo.

I followed this with a delicious 2-course chicken Sunday roast. Moist pieces of corn fed chicken on the bone, yummy Yorkshire pud with seasonal veg and a side of cauliflower cheese and cranberry sauce.

All nicely presented and good portions size. The gravy required a little seasoning, a touch of salt and pepper did the trick.

The chocolate fondant was sweet and indulgent with a refreshing raspberry sorbet.

I also had 2 glasses of Stellenboch Rose wine. A nice refreshing accompaniment to the dish.

Aside from the excellently priced sunday roasts, all other items on the menu are so reasonably priced.

I can highly recommend a visit to anyone if you want good quality food and drinks in a relaxing venue.

It may look unassuming from the outside, but as soon as you enter and walk through the beautiful carriage like corridor you will be pleasantly surprised.

I know I will...

I eat out a lot in Islington and had been looking forward to eating at the H&P given it looks so amazing from the outside. Shame it's such a disappointment when you see it all up close.

The waiting staff - although nice - were inexperienced and annoyingly slow. Whoever was managing them seemed to have some of the Hoxley's old-world cutlery wedged in her bum given her facial expressions and general mood. Do these people not realise you eat out not just for the food, but to also have a nice time?

The food seems to be trying to emulate what you can get next door at Le Mercury for half the price, which is probably the most irritating part.

Much of the menu was also off, and we were told other items from the available dishes were unavailable. When we asked if we could have something extra in place of the missing items, or some money off given mains are around £14, we were told that would be fine - except it wasn't fine and we were told to pay full price at the end and that the missing items, although on the menu, were never meant to be there anyway (?).

The response of the manager was to pass us the message that we could waiver the waitress's tip. Classy.

Finally, the music - which you would think would be 1920s jazz given the look of the place but was actually hard house - was so loud we had to ask for it to be turned down. That makes me feel like an old fart, which I also resent.

Bog are...