Kensington Palace Cafe — Restaurant in London

If you visit Kensington Palace, do yourself a favour and skip the café. Your money would be far better spent at any number of other places around Hyde Park.

Our welcome into the café was not exactly inviting; all guests' bags are searched upon entry. This is understandable to me, as it is a palace, where security is paramount; but it may make some patrons uncomfortable.

The process of ordering was rather confusing. There are two tills with one queue, but it's not clear where the queue should form. The cold drink selection is hidden out of sight from the register, behind a bench away from the entry. Once you've made your way to a till and ordered, your food and drinks are prepared right there in front of you, while you wait to pay. Cakes are plated and coffees are made just behind the register, while hot food requires the attendant to leave the counter to disappear into the door of the kitchen behind; after standing alone, waiting three or four minutes with no explanation, our attendant returned with our paninis.

The latte I ordered was made as a vanilla latte, although I'm not sure if it was understood what was actually ordered: communication was somewhat lacking. Our paninis were mostly tasty, although a bit soggy and under toasted. The side salad of leaves was drenched in a rather tasteless oil based dressing. Crisps were good though.

After walking past a great statue of Queen Victoria on the way in to the café, we were rather excited to spot a Victoria sponge in the cake cabinet, one of our favourites! Having been disappointed by a few different tea rooms around England, we thought to ourselves: "If anyone can do a good Victoria sponge, surely this place can!" Unfortunately, we were sorely disappointed. While the actual sponge itself was fairly tasty, the cream was a powdery, sickly sweet nightmare. Nothing like real cream, and totally inedible. As my companion remarked, Queen Victoria...

“Let them eat cr*p” Some of the worst food I’ve had eating out anywhere in a long time. The choices were very limited and prices were expectedly high, but the quality of the panini was truly shocking. I should complain about the pathetic amount of filling in the overpriced Panini, however the smear of something vaguely resembling tuna Mayo and a bit of melted cheese was so awful that having more filling would likely have just made the meal even worse. If for instance you compare the offering to what you might find in a National Trust property cafe, in looses out in all regards. They should have a long hard look at themselves but I imagine the profit margins on such tripe are so good, and the regular supply of tourist customers so reliable that they have no reason to. But do yourself a favour and head to...

Had lunch with a friend and their kids at the The Kensington Palace Pavilion. The service was very much below average, food was so so, and most of the plates came cold. We had to ask for sparkling water 6x times, and waited more than 30 min for the bottle to come. By the time the bottle came, we had already finished our meal. Additionally, we asked the water at the beginning (before the dishes arrived to our table) to take a picture for us, and we keep on asking, it never happened. (see picture of VITTORIO the water that served our table, very rude/un-polite, bad manners and incredibly bad customer service) Food is also over price for the quality (cold and tasteless). Not coming back for sure. I would give it a 0 star if I can. See pictures of the waiter, and...