Otter Trading — Restaurant in London

As a local, I really wanted to love Otter, but there are a few ongoing issues that let it down.

The kids' menu is the biggest disappointment. It's very unbalanced, offering mostly carbs and barely any vegetables. For example, the "chipolatas and wedges" consisted of just one small sausage and four very dry potato wedges — all for £5.20, which feels incredibly overpriced for what you get. It would be great to see the kids' options revised to reflect healthier choices, and for the menu descriptions to match the actual portions (perhaps changing "chipolatas" to "chipolata" to be more accurate).

The adult menu is okay but definitely needs a refresh. Another consistent issue is the coffee - it always tastes burnt, and the milk is overheated, which means they rarely achieve the proper texture for a latte, flat white, or cappuccino. It's a shame because good coffee could really lift the whole experience.

Service-wise, the staff are sometimes friendly (and the manager is lovely), but often it feels like they are playing the part of being welcoming rather than being genuinely warm. It’s a subtle but...

nice place /shop/ and location BUT very RUDE staff! They never ever smile to us. NEVER! Like mission impossible here )))Before I used to go there often, honestly but to see this attitude is very unpleasant. Especially one man who works there, who always take a piece of me, and always pretended he doesn't understand my English. At first I did not pay attention to this, but then I get tired to repeat my order 2-3 times and got - PARDON ME. LOL. Ones I did ask the question directly - what is wrong with me or me? why you always make like a joke about my language? why does you behave like that? He really was bit confuse. I am not English, and never will be, BUT I put effort speaking for 5 different languages and respect people. It seems to me he is just does not like Eastern Europe and people from there as well. This is very stupid from his point. I lived and worked in London so many years and never have experienced this kind of treatment. Now my family and I are going across the street, and spend time in lovely Italian coffee shop, happy to spending money there, and feel better with lovely...

I’ve been here on two occasions and have had bad experiences with the staff.

On my first visit, I was waiting at the till for quite a while, while the 3-4 members of staff pretty much ignored me. When one of them finally served me, I wasn’t greeted, just asked ‘what do you want?’ and then made to feel like I was being an inconvenience.

During my second visit, I tried to pay by Amex, and was told pretty rudely by the middle-aged guy serving that ‘we don’t accept Amex, we shouldn’t have to pay for your points’. Don’t get me wrong, I TOTALLY understand when places don’t accept Amex, especially small businesses, and I usually always ask - but this cafe has an Amex branded umbrella stand and an Amex Open/Close sign in the door. You can also let customers know that you don’t accept Amex politely, the guys rude attitude really put me off ever coming back again (and isn’t negative experience with the service isn’t a one-off if you read other people’s reviews). Surely being rude to customers actually does more damage to a small business than ‘paying for...