Richard The First — Restaurant in London

I'm no pub crawler and only go to meet friends with hope there is something to eat on menu with a mocktail as not drinker. One thing to say is that these pubs are looking like clones. From the obligatory picnic tables out front so you can guzzle your drink with a bit of co2 to the entrance with the bar scattered with tables n chairs n a banquette or 2 to another area at the side to catch the overspill of customers and onto the garden. All standard. But this pub narrow as it is is fairly huge. A side hall easily hold about 70 people to a dining area which could hold another 70. And finally a huge garden area which could hold another 70 with different size tables and chairs and more picnic type of tables with haters to offset the chilly nights. The blurb on website says they hold quizzes and music but it must be on the weekends and not on Friday when we got there. Mercifully there wasn't any loud music so you could chat without shouting. The pub is just behind the the square of Greenwich so it was quiet, laid out in a residential area so probably good for locals. Parking was pay n display and limited. Getting there friends told me it was easy to get a train and bus. Now we come to the menu which is just hyperbole with fresh seasonal bla bla bla. The portions are stingy. Take the starter 3 pieces of hard sourdough (called some fancy name that none of us recognised) served with garlic butter, where the garlic was raw and lumpy and served in a small bowl. We thought we could share one between 2 but size wise it's really for one. My friend ordered a couple of small plates - the salad with thahini dressing was so thin with no seasoning whatsoever and small which was the only true adjective. Its just a really pretentious menu with words like companelli, lollo bondi tossed in. Its trying for restaurant quality but the limited menu just doesn't match. The mains - if I see beer battered haddock and chips on pub grub I will lose it. Again it is a menu which is a clone of other pubs in the area. The cook has a frier for the fish, scampi and chips and griddle for the burgers probably on standby served on a plate or platter with a metal bucket to hold the chips. 🙄🙄🙄 Sadly all in all I left hungry. The pub boasts a roast dinner but only on Sunday- what size I couldn't tell you. Again seems to be now a standard for pubs. Drinks are the normal stuff offered in pubs, beers, ales, lagers and soft drinks. Tried to find a virgin pina colada but nearest I got was a pineapple refresher thinned out with soda, couldn't taste any coconut in a medium small glass. At £7 each disappointing. I'd say go and eat elsewhere like Nandoes and then pop in for a chat at pub for tose who...

This must be the unfriendliest pub in London. Avoid, unless you like being abused by rude posh poorly trained young people. Tonight there were two other customers but bar staff walked away from the bar & disappeared around the corner as we approached, coming in from the cold. No wonder the place was empty. We’ve been in twice recently after the cinema, & only because the neighbouring & hugely friendly Prince of Greenwich was closed. Both times the Richard 1 was empty. Both times (different) bar staff were rude & surly almost to the point of hostility. Nearly £15 for 2 & half pints. And, ‘you’d better finish up quickly because it’s 10.20 & we want to close. It’s Sunday night.’ I reminded the bar staff that it was Monday. ‘We still want to close.’ Either you’re open or you’re not. What a dreadful public house, more house than public (and not in an old school kind of way). Maybe if you’re English and privileged it’s different? It’s a beautiful looking pub. The beer that we had wasn’t bad either. The reception, however, was truly awful. Staff need training. The business they're in is call hospitality so they should try to be hospitable, even if they feel socially superior to the person who is buying a drink. A truly dreadful experience. A visit to the Richard 1 is how to ruin a good evening. The Richard 1 does not deserve the one star I...

Had a disappointing experience this weekend. I'm sure it wasn't the staff's fault, but by 7.30PM on a Saturday, the kitchen had clearly run out of many of the ingredients needed for items on the menu. Each course turned up with almost all of the side dishes and/or garnishes listed on the menu missing. This resulted in rather plain food, at outrageous prices for what it was. For example, a veggie burger and chips (with no toppings other than shredded iceberg lettuce) cost £14.50. Sausage and mash turned up as literally just sausage and mash, with none of the accompaniments listed on the menu. I understand that, due to everyone needing a "substantial meal" to be in the pub, food orders must have been higher than expected, and ingredients may have run low. However, that simply doesn't justify the prices charged for the food - these should have been lowered in view of the lack of ingredients (or else the items removed from the menu entirely). I'm sure this inflexibility is due to management at Young's not empowering pub staff to make on the fly changes to the menu/prices. Ultimately, we left feeling we had been...