Lasdun Restaurant - South Bank — Restaurant in London

Beautiful food, no complaints there and a fun menu with solid takes on British classics. Some of the worst service I've had at a fine dining restaurant. On arriving, it was clear the waitress had made up her mind about us (we were a much younger table in comparison to other guests) and despite having a reservation our table wasn't ready. We ordered cocktails to start and I was handed two of the three while my friend was left empty handed. We tried to order a few plates to start and share but the waitress said we should order all at once so the kitchen could organise itself which is fair enough. To start, we ordered a dozen oysters and devilled eggs - only a half dozen arrived and when we clarified we asked for a dozen it took half an hour to come out. Only two devilled eggs on the plate for a table of three arrived and only then did the waitress ask, did you want a third. We said yes, and waited another half hour for a second plate of two to come out.

The rest of the food was beautiful but after ordering 40 minutes ago, we were told they were out of chips (on a very quiet weeknight at 8:30?), although another table that ordered after us got theirs. When we ordered wine, a bottle was plonked down at the table and the waitress walked off, and I had to ask another person to uncork it - if you can't get that right, what is going on...

It felt like once we got the bill past £149.99, the staff started paying attention to us and looked after us for the rest of the evening. Seems as though three young people who ask for raw seafood and chips to start with a cocktail and a wine on the way isn't the clientele they're after, despite us being polite and pretty accommodating given all the errors. At no point did any of the staff apologise or even consider comping us for stuffing us around for half the evening. To top it off, the items that weren't available were still on the bill and if I hadn't read it correctly, we would've been charged.

Beautiful food but be ready to have to financially earn...

We went to Lasdun on the back of Grace Dent's review in The Guardian. She said it was hard to find, so we got there early. It is not difficult to find. It is sign posted on the balcony and indicated by an arrow. She may be wrong about directions, but she is right about the food which is superb. At least ours was. I'm not sure about the 'serve your own' chicken & leek pie shared by the couple on the next table. Too fiddly by half.

On to our experience. We had cocktails at the bar as we had a spare half hour. Aperol spritz for me, coffee martini for Mum. Later we drank a carafe of excellent Picpoul de Pinet. Service was friendly, efficient and informative. Patient too. The restaurant and bar is wood panelled, on the small side and slender. It predominantly overlooks the upper gallery. We had a table that afforded us a view of the Thames. The menu is short which I think allows for higher quality. No one is spreading themselves thin here; the food is outstandingwith a deft concentration of depth and subtlety, which sounds like a contradiction but really isn't.

We shared a hefty pungent Guinea fowl terrine which came with a pear compot. The home bake bread was soft and slightly nutty in flavour. Mum chose to follow Grace's advice and took the buttery browned cod on a shrimp & cucumber sauce [Delicious, she declared] while I chose braised barley with courgette and minted peas. It scented heavily of the sprinkled parmesan, but ate like a vegetarian risotto, plump and slightly charred, packed full of those warring subtleties I mentioned. Unusually we were too full for dessert. Coffee followed, probably the poorest aspect of the meal, a bit too bitter, but I won't let that spoil our experience.

A great meal in an unusual setting. It is busiest at lunch on matinee days and during pretheatre, but evening dining was sedate, scrumptious and eminently superb. A big thumbs up then and thank...

We've been here half a dozen times, and most enjoyable they were, but this evening was a real disappointment. We had a 515pm reservation, but had to run at 7pm without coffee - and after only having two courses! We've shared the chicken pie on prior visits but this time it was not good! Reheated pastry, really thin gravy, an actual lump of chicken (not shredded or diced), virtually no leeks and three girolles! The new potatoes were an embarrassment to Jersey but, to be fair, the buttered greens were good! Desert was equally disappointing - the Eton mess was not an Eton mess: it was strawberries on whipped cream with a meringue top. We were only told the poacher wasn't available when we ordered desert, which, given I went the mains/desert two course route partially because of the poacher, defeated my order totally. I was given, instead, "some sort of crumbly blue sheeps cheese" - our waitresses' exact words - which the apple jelly did not go with at all. I should have realised things had "slipped" at Lasdun when I ordered a "classic bloody mary" cocktail and was told they couldn't make it! All in all, it was a disappointing dinner. For just shy of £160 I did not expect the scruffy service we got, I expected better food and I certainly thought a bloody mary wasn't beyond the realms of the barman. To book a table here is a real job of work, so I'm afraid it looks as if this restaurant has started to rely on previous good press and not care about service or food quality. We will not be...