Laryn Cafe Bar — Restaurant in London

I have eaten and drunk at Laryn many times over a number of years. Drink, food and service all brilliant (do order a platter of Eritrean food, you can get meat or vegan, they're both delicious). I just have to comment on the reviews (I suspect maybe from one person) that call the owner Manny rude and aggressive. Every time I've been he has been polite and provided brilliant service with a smile. The reviews calling him stuff like "very rude and aggressive", well, there are three options. 1. Fake reviews. 2. The customer was being extremely disprespectful (I want to use a four letter word but keeping to disrespectul so this gets posted). 3. possibly Manny was very busy or having a bad day: as far as I've seen it's a two person operation with him behind the bar and a lady (not sure if wife or relative) who is a brilliant chef doing the food. He gets very busy. But "very rude and aggressive" I have never seen even when the place is full of rowdy drunk people. I'm a hospital Consultant doctor and Laryn is my first choice when I take my junior doctors out. It should be your first choice if in area too. Some nights are karaoke nights - I'm not into karaoke but still go on those nights for food, drink, atmosphere and great service. Sorry for long review but there is something seriously amiss with the negative reviews and had to...

Horrible atmosphere! We arranged a surprise party for my best friends birthday and there are countless of issues we encountered. As soon as we walked in, we were met with ridiculous rules like ‘No caps or hats allowed’ After trying to resolve the issue and apologising, we were met with complete and utter disrespect. He interrupted, wouldn’t let us talk, he spoke to us like we were kids… He threatened to cancel the party, just because we were trying to apologise??? HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!! Met with him to arrange the party event and his energy was very off and cold, there was no clear outline of the booking fee. Even at the party, he was chasing us up on how much we were planning to spend tonight… so unprofessional. The beers, the water, the shots were all warm… It took forever for them to get us ice, the beers was DEFINITELY OFF. It tasted foul, it is clear that the pipes haven’t cleaned for a very long time. My friend only had beverages from that establishment and she was violently throwing up. This place has literally made her sick to her stomach! The bathroom was also disgusting, clearly unsanitary with a bunch of flies flying about… ALL IN ALL, aside from celebrating our friends birthday - this was a horrible experience, you strongly recommend YOU DON’T come to this...

I cycle past here all the time and was looking for an opportunity to visit and check it out - unfortunately, my first attempt at doing so was really disappointing. We went for karaoke on a Saturday night. The “open mic” is really just YouTubing songs.

That’s fine, but any gap in songs - even when it results from YouTube’s algos and not from the patrons trying to enjoy the open mic - results in the operator/manager/owner being unreasonably rude. A female member of our group had the mic ripped from her hand by the manager, was verbally assaulted, and said she’d never felt as aggressively treated in London - despite working in pubs and bars in London for 6 years, which is saying something.

It’s too bad, I was really looking forward to having a cool karaoke/open mic night spot in my neighbourhood, but I guess I’ll have to keep looking. The management is so unreasonable and rude it’s just not with it. My first negative review I’ve ever left (anywhere), which is also...