Las Iguanas - London - Royal Festival Hall — Restaurant in London

We went for the bottomless Tapas for my friend's birthday celebrations, we upgraded to bottomless drinks, which were during 90 minutes of bottomless tapas. We had a waitress who was very friendly and provided attentive service. She took our order straight away for food and drinks. Halfway through our 90 minutes, we hadn't been served in a while for drinks. I would say we've been waiting at least 15 minutes, and we thought maybe our waitress had finished her shift as we hadn't seen her in a while. We believe this was the case as we didn't see her for the rest of the time we were there. As other waiters were passing, we were asking to order drinks, which we did eventually get, but then again sat for another 15 minutes with empty drinks and staff walking past and not serving us. We were getting impatient because this wasn't the service we expected, as the lady was so nice and attentive to us when we first came in. Eventually, I spoke to a member of staff and I explained we had bottomless drinks and I said that we think the waitress assigned to us has finished her shift which is fine but somebody should of signed a another member of staff to our table as we haven't been getting served and have been having to get someone's attention every time to get a drink which was slow service. He didn't even apologise, didn't come across friendly or like he cared, and he said that our brunch had finished and we could have one drink, which we said fine. This drink never came, it was a glass of bubbles, takes 2 seconds to pour, it's not like they had to make a cocktail or anything. This same member of staff had walked past us multiple of times, 10 minutes later, and he could clearly see we didn't have our drink as promised. In the end, we asked a member of staff who was working downstairs in a different department to where we were sitting, and straight away he got our drinks, which was helpful. We asked for the bill, which he also brought to us. We've now had our bill for 15 mins, and nobody again has come over with the card machine again; staff passing us and can see we have our bill but haven't bothered to take our payment. In the end, I asked the same guy who was working downstairs as he was passing. I told him we won't be paying the service charge, and I apologised to him and explained it wasn't his fault, but we weren't happy with the service we received from the waiters around us. He was very nice and aplogised and understood why we weren't paying it. I said to him we've paid for bottomless drinks, and we have only had 6 drinks, and technically, the 6th drink we would have never received if we didn't ask again for it. I have decided we won't be returning or going to any Las Iguanas branches due to the service we received. We paid for bottomless drinks, and we don't believe it was worth it. The staff in the area where we were sitting were standing around together and talking more than...

Imagine everything that could possibly go wrong in a restaurant, and it all happened during my visit.

I don’t usually leave reviews unless an experience is either “out of this world” amazing or a total disaster. Sadly, this was the latter.

It started at the door. We stood in a queue for over 10 minutes while half a dozen tables sat empty outside and at least twenty more sat empty inside. When I asked if we could just sit down, I was told no — we had to wait for a staff member to seat us.

Another 5 minutes of pointless queuing later, we were finally shown to a table.

Once seated, the wait continued. Ten minutes passed without anyone approaching us. I flagged the waiter twice and both times got the classic “just a moment.” Nothing. Eventually, I went up to the bar myself — only to be told I couldn’t order at the bar, despite it being empty and the restaurant far from busy. So back to my seat I went, still waiting.

By the time someone finally took our order, we’d been there half an hour. And of course, the drink I wanted wasn’t available — “empty barrel.” Head in hands at this point. I ordered something else, and to my surprise, the replacement drink only took 8–10 minutes to arrive instead of 15+. The food followed another 10 minutes later, meaning we were almost an hour into our visit before we actually had a meal and a drink in front of us.

Now, credit where it’s due: the food itself was good. No complaints there. But the problems didn’t end. Once I’d finished eating, I asked for the bill. I was so relieved to leave that I didn’t even realise until later that the dessert included in my deal never arrived, and the waiter never mentioned it. On top of that, they ignored the “2 for £15” cocktail deal I’d ordered, charged me full price, and then automatically added a service charge.

By then, I didn’t have the energy to argue over a few extra quid — but I do have the energy to write this. If you value your time (and your patience), avoid this place. The food was nice, but the service was a complete shambles from...

Yesterday we attempted to visit for the bottomless tapas. We had booked a table and upon arrival had to wait for one to become available.

Once seated we were left with menus and no one attempted to take our drinks orders for over 15 minutes. Once we had flagged down a member of staff she had rolled her eyes and rudely said “yeah, I’ll come to you in a minutes”. After another 5 minutes she returned and we gave her our drinks orders, then let her know that we were taking part in the bottomless tapas.

At this stage I would’ve hoped that she’d offer us an explanation as to how this would work ie how many dishes we can order at one time. Instead she looked at us blankly as if we should automatically know. None of this information is available on the website or menu therefore it is expected that a member of staff can help.

After finally ordering our first three dishes we were then left to wait for them to arrive. Our drinks came out very quickly and were lovely however came with no napkins like other tables. We asked for some napkins and were told the drinks will drip regardless so there’s no point in using napkins. This was another strange interaction with staff that made the whole experience very cold and unwelcoming.

After waiting a total of 45 minutes (half of the bottomless tapas time) no food was served to us. We called over another member of staff and requested that we just pay for our drinks and cancel the tapas as it wouldn’t be worth the money and we were both very hungry after the long wait. The original member of staff who took our order was sent over to find out the issue and WITHOUT apology told us we would not be charged for the drinks and we could just leave.

This is a very negative experience considering it’s our first time visiting. The staff were rude. Would...