Knowles of Norwood — Restaurant in London

YOUR SAFETY IS NOT A PRIORITY HERE!!! If you want to go out and worry constantly that someone will steal your stuff and staff would be ignorant, then go to this pub. We've been at this pub for several times during the years, but this time we left extremely disappointed. During a chat that I had with my wife and our other 2 friends, someone felt the need to pick up our bag which was next to us and our drinks (about 20cm, really close). He took the oportunity in a moment of distraction. After reporting that to the police, we found out that they could help eventually when they get to our case(too late to recover stuff). After we asked the staff from the pub for the CCTV footage to see how the person looks and we could actually take the evidences to the police to help them with the case, we've been just refused all the times we asked for them. I actually implored one of the Assistant Managers to help us as we're desperate, and he kept telling me that he's supposed to serve as the pub is really busy (they had roughly 6 customers at all) and he kept arguing with us for about 15 mins but not taking 3 minutes to help us with the CCTV. The stolen things were our bill-payer, our working equipment which's value was about £4000. In the end, they're supporting the fact that the public safety is more important than anything else since they preffer letting him go so easy with our stuff, instead just handing us the pictures so we could know exactly who to look after and share it among our comunity to help us find the culprit faster....... Be considerate if you'll go to this pub, just in case if you'll suffer any kind of incident, I'm afraid that you'll have to face them yourself as they're willing to interact with you just when you're actually paying them generous amounts of money. They would find any excuse to cover themselves and deny any responsability over this kind of matters. Wish...

Avoid at all costs!

Have tried twice now in the last few weeks.

Today was the last try and I do not plan on giving a third try!

On the first occasion, was told there were "no potatoes" to make the hash on the menu, this was despite there being multiple shops in very close vicinity. After being frustrated was then begrudgingly told they could do the order (potatoes must have magically arrived) . It was undercooked when it arrived (after a long wait in at a non busy time). We also ordered an English breakfast. The house beans were disgusting and the food cold. The service was very poor. You also have to order at the bar like in nandos (although there are no table numbers to indicate where to send your order), I am not sure why the multiple staff are incapable of doing table service in a place that is supposed to be of a reasonable quality, not a greasy spoon.

Attempted to try today, was told no chai latte available, then told a 30 mins wait for food, then told a 1 hour 30 wait due to kitchen closing (at lunch time!)

There was also a man walking around with a Bluetooth speaker held high loudly playing music around different tables. Apparently this was for a quiz....

Naff of Norwood - don't bother trying , it's not worth the irritation or the money.

UPDATE:

Was asked to contact by email to discuss - contacted ages ago and doesn't even respond. I can only conclude that these disingenuous invites to discuss poor reviews look like mere efforts to improve appearance rather than to actually address any issues, 2x poor experiences out of 2 at the place and 1x poor experience in...

Good food, excellent service!

We popped into Knowles for a late lunch this past Sunday, during Feast. There were half a dozen of us, and not all wanted roasts and we were really pleased there was a reasonable selection of other bits and pieces, both veggie and non-, which suited us just right.

There was a mix up with one of the orders (one of the side dishes, "croquettes", was misheard by the bar staff as "courgettes" - another side dish on the menu, which was completely understandable in a noisy pub) and we were blown away by how wonderfully the staff handled it. There was no argument, profuse apologies, the missing dish was re-ordered immediately and they let us know exactly how long we'd have to wait for it, we were given the courgettes to keep anyway and were also offered some pistachios while we waited.

It goes without saying that while you go for the food, you'll keep going back because of the service. In this case the food was great but the service was exceptional. All this on a Feast day, when the place was packed and staff must have been super busy was really impressive.

Well done Knowles, you've got great people working for you, please let them know! It's a million miles away from the (not so) Great North Wood, where we've had problems with orders many times and you complain...