MUST Wine Bar Hampstead — Restaurant in London

So disappointed to write this review. I was excited to try a cute wine bar with varied wines from across the world and hope that I would receive lovely service and learn a bit more about some lovely wines that I could bring friends back to at a later date. I will be advising everyone I know not to go. When I walked in I was barely acknowledged until I walked right up to the bar and had to ask if I take a seat myself. It was quiet there were maybe 3-5 people in the bar. I sat outside granted I was far from the bar, but it took forever to get the menu and when it was brought to me it was placed down without an offer of suggestions of wine, what type of wine I was interested in or pairing options, I would expect this for a place that aren’t wine specialists but for a place that claims to know their wine - I would expect more. It took a while again before they came to take my order and every time I turned around the girls were giggling at the bar with no care that I was there. I ordered what was listed as high point champagne thinking that would be nice and asked what cheeses were on the platter. The girl (fair enough was new so had to go check) but again took forever and I saw them both giggling with no urgency or care. The champagne was £14 (which I’d be more than happy to pay it was decent) but honestly tasted like a Tesco special) and then neither bothered to ask if I liked my half drank drink when I left. I don’t like to leave reviews like this as I know hospitality is difficult but it ruined my day, so please take this as feedback so others can enjoy because I certainly won’t...

Overall fine but not for us.

The servers are very friendly, but I’m not convinced they know much about the wine aside from what is recently popular. We ordered a platter with a pairing and maybe naively expected the wine bar staff would know what pairs well. The server looked to us to indicate what wines we wanted to pair with it and when we didn’t know, provided some popular ones (which I also overheard being recommended to other tables as if there’s a surplus) rather than suggesting what would “pair” with the foods, out of the 80+ wines on the menu. I think it boils down to mismatched expectations.

Further to expectations, I’d hoped for lower, warmer lighting levels in a wine bar nestled next to the Heath. It felt like we were in a diner. The down lighting on the wine display could use some attention as well because it provides a blinding white light as if we were in a surgical exam room. Not exactly relaxing!

The final mismatched expectation is the music. It felt like we were pre-gaming for the club rather than the intended unwinding after a long work week. They (the playlist) took a lot of good song from the early 2000s/2010s and made them into worse remixes. Again, just very mismatched expectations.

Overall it feels like the aesthetic and atmosphere was done as cheaply as possible, which we would hope saves more money for the wine and food, but although the food was fine, no real complaints, we have no idea if the wine selection is worthwhile.

Well one silly complaint about the food… the menu says King Prawns, but they’re just...

Went today around midday; place was empty apart from two other tables.

Understand that there was only one waitress working, however, we stood at the door for 5 minutes in clear sight and were treated as we were invisible while she chatted with one of the tables.

When we were finally acknowledged and told to take a seat, the waitress went back to the table that she was with previously and appeared to be serving a wine flight, which understandably takes time to pour the different wines.

When she finally came outside to take our order (maybe 10 minutes after being seated), she didn’t mention anything about the wait or apologize or anything.

As someone who has worked in service in the past, it really goes an extremely long way to just say “hey, I’m sorry for the wait, I’m the only one here today, etc”.

Had that been the case, we wouldn’t have been agitated and I wouldn’t be writing this review. It’s truly a very simple...