Oliver's Village Café — Restaurant in London

This used to be one of my favourite café in the area. Emphasis on the "used to be".

For months, I have spent entire days working, studying and drawing from this café (this was before the pandemic). I enjoyed the quiet atmosphere, the tasty food and the very welcoming staff. I considered it a home away from home, and had some very fond memory of the place.

Unfortunately, the last time I visited the café to work for a couple of hours, as I did for years, I have been asked to leave quite rudely by the (new) staff - few minutes after I had finished the lunch I ordered!

I want to highlight that there has never been a "no laptop" policy, there were no new signs about it, and while it was lunch time, I was not preventing any other customer from being seated and/or served. I just needed to sit close to a plug, so to keep working (and inevitably ordering more food and drinks during the afternoon).

I was appalled by the rudeness of the staff, and as much as it pains me, given how attached I was to the place, I will probably never go back again.

Still, I want to give credit where credit is due: the pandan cake is P H E N O M E N A L the pancake breakfast is great, in particular the vegan blueberry one if you want to order a custom cake for a birthday, please DO: I had a chocolate one prepared for my partner at the time and it was possibly the best birthday cake I ever had (the friends that came along...

Good food and good prices... All ruined by one very rude waiter!

We paid by Amex through my phone, not knowing that they didn't want us to use Amex, and not seeing one very small sticker on the front of their card machine. After we did this and the transaction went though, they asked us to pay again by another card instead and were told we will be given a refund. Whilst long-winded (and we still haven’t got our refund), this was fine.

The issue was that even after us being very accommodative about the refund and using a second card without making a fuss about anything, the waiter then felt the need to tell us abruptly, that we are at fault and that we should never try to use Amex in small independent businesses and that we should have seen the tiny sign on the card machine.

As we tried to explain to him that we are not at fault, he then decided not to listen, and tried to usher us out of the restaurant. Nobody told us not to use Amex, and even so, we then agreed to repay with a different card - so we felt quite shocked to be blamed and told off in front of other customers after everything was sorted, and then to be ushered out of the restaurant! What a terrible experience at the end all ruined by their waiter. Will not go...

Went here to sample their brunch menu and was not disappointed! First off, well made coffee, their flat white was spot on, and the americano was also really good. Next, the food. I had the poached eggs and avocado on homemade sourdough, and I also ordered a sidedish of bacon to go with it. Portion was good, bread was tasty, the poached egg was perfect and had great colour, and the avocado was creamy. To top it off, a bit of a lemon chilli dressing had been drizzled on top, which gave the dish a little extra. Finally, the service. Very attentive, friendly and quick. We had asked for the only table outside, on what I would say was the first spring day of the year, and even though we were the only ones outside, and they had plenty of guests inside, we were looked after very well. Definitely coming back for their breakfast, and to sample more of their cakes, and they are supposed to have a great Sunday...