Humble Grape Battersea Wine Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in London

My wife and I decided to try the Humble Grape tonight. At first glance it seemed like an interesting prospect, but sadly the experience was as thrilling as my mate Dave discussing the tactical nuances of Cardiff City during this premier league season.

As it was a date night, we stayed for dinner. Faced with a limited menu we ordered cheese croquettes (cheese balls) - very cheesy, chicken with slaw and pesto, and lamb belly with royal jersey potatoes.

After waiting for the kitchen to catch the lamb and chicken, I was presented with the smallest portion of food (the lamb) known to man. The only logical and feasible explanation for this was it must have taken them so long to catch the bloody lamb that they were rationing the meat for the remainder of the evening.

Thankfully, Battersea has a local McDonalds for those hungry customers who have just eaten at the humble grape.

After taking 5 minutes to finish my food, I looked across the table enviously at my wife's decent portion of chicken. However, her smug little face was soon blanched when she noticed that the chicken was pink inside.

Safe to say that most of it was left on the plate. Again thank goodness for McDonalds the saviour to all those searching for food after 10.30pm.

We raised our concerns with what we assumed was the manager, who predictably said that they had served at least four people the lamb dish and no one complained about the size - probably because they were so grateful that they actually got something to eat after waiting a lifetime for the dish.

We are local to the area and I can safely say that we will not be going to the Humble Grape again, which is a real shame as the concept seems to be a good one.

It is terrible that the owners and managers of this restaurant have placed greater emphasis on style and not substance...

I would recommend saving your money and trying other restaurants in the area who actually care about the what they serve...

A lovely atmosphere later on, but best suited for drinks. The food was below average, and not reflective of the prices on the menu.

I'm not sure if the chefs are scared of adding too much salt, but all of the dishes we ordered apart from the Steak were extremely under seasoned. I was incredibly underwhelmed and a little confused by the "smoked Aioli" with our steak dish - it had an odd chemical taste which was miles away from the very simple flavours of what I believe they were trying to achieve.

Our server ironically forgot three of our dishes - (Sourdough and Tarragon butter, Braised pork cheek and olives) after we prompted him to take a pen and paper at the start of our order, to which he declined. Our knives were taken away when we needed them, and I actually had to get up and take a menu several times despite asking for one to be kept on our table incase we wanted to order anything extra.

The chocolate tart was shocking, and needed to be broken in half with my hands to eat, it was that stale. Marks and Spencers sell better pastry in their bakery section for £2, and for £7 I was really unimpressed. This should not have been brought out. There is no excuse for this during a quiet service - there were 4 other people in the restaurant at this time in for drinks only. If it was busy, these slip ups may have been more tolerable.

All in all, I certainly wouldn't return and would advise diners with high standards to avoid this establishment. Which is a shame as customer photos on instagram looked incredibly promising, but these were not from the Battersea branch. Our waiters were all friendly and pleasant,...

2.3 stars because the staff were ok.

The mark-up to drink a bottle in is not justified by the service or ambience. It goes by a percentage-at times close to 100% , of the retail price.

We don't even get the wine topped up for us nor basic nibbles like cheese, olives or nuts for a very good bottle(£50). Shocking.

Food definitely overpriced and annoyingly had to keep asking for water.

Wont be back any time soon to have a 'night in' here. Shame.

Many ubereat(drink??)/deliveroo orders seen - that's the way to go. The mark up is less painful.

9/1/19 Dear Alistair,

Thank you for your reply and the consideration you've shown to my comments.

By mark-up, I meant the corkage charge/extra fee to drink in - I think it would be more fair that this is a flat fee across all bottles (to drink in) and not a percentage of the take-out price as I don't see how service, overheads etc change if the retail price of bottle increases. Therefore, it seems a little unjustified to me that (for example) one pays a £10 extra drink in fee for a £20 bottle, and a £25 fee for a £28 bottle.

The kitchen is creative and the selection of small plates that we had were good but we thought they were a little overpriced for what we got.

You do have an interesting, exciting and well-curated selection of wines which I am looking forward to work my way through! However, I do not agree with the way the charges are worked out as mentioned above and may have those glasses of fizz as I select a few bottles to...