Skylon — Restaurant in London

A disappointing experience compared to previous visits. Ratings: View: * Room: * Food: * Service: *

When I arrived at the welcome desk two men were facing away from me, arguing, and it was a woman coming towards them to join in that greeted me. Once it was established that I had a reservation, I was walked to the table, but the woman stopped part way to continue the argument with a colleague.

Once sat at the table, the adjacent empy table still had the remains of the previous diner's meal on it and stayed like that for the next hour.

I was then ignored for a good 15 to 20 minutes before someone grudgingly returned to ask about drinks, and even that was not handled well as I had to remind them about a wine selection after discussing water. Another long wait occured before the water finally arrived, which was the offer of bottled water after I had said tap was fine. Perhaps in recognition of the long wait.

The wine list is extortionate. I selected the Priorat as it's unusual to find in a UK restaruant and was a pleasant drink. Checking later it was 2.7 times the price of retail.

As a vegetarian I had already consulted the menu and identified three starters that sounded great. However when I was handed the menu the set menu shot out of the folder at me, despite the fact that it was only available up to 6.30pm and it was now after 8pm. At this level of restaurant it should really have been removed. The waiter took my selection of three starters in his stride and we agreed an order for them to be delivered. This was adhered too at a reasonable cadence.

First dish was the Burrata and it was delicious - highly recommended.

The second dish was the cauliflower soup, which arrived tepid. Had there been any waiters nearby I would have requested it to be reheated, but there weren't any. The soup did taste very good, but would have been better hot.

The third dish was baked beetroot and "vegan mousse" whatever that is. It too was delicious, but someone had decided to decorate it with endive leaves sticking up like a kids birthday cake rather than something from a serious kitchen. While taste is obviously the most important factor, presentation counts.

That out the way, the dessert menu was presented. Except it wasn't, it was the same one before with the set menu and the a la carte main courses. I had to call the waiter back to point this out for him to bring the right menu.

I ordered the chocolate ganache which was enjoyable but not remarkable. According to the menu it came with salted caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. The former was a dried-out smear on the plate, the latter was a rock-hard lump that had clearly been scooped and frozen and had no discernable taste.

Overall a very dissappointing experience for what claims to be, and is priced as, a high-end restaurant. I won't be returning despite...

I booked a table through the Skylon website for a late lunch at 3pm. We were attending an evening concert at the nearby Queen Elizabeth Hall. After being seated and brought water the waiter took some time to return for our drinks order. When the wine we’d subsequently ordered arrived we were asked if we were ready to order food, which we weren’t. We were then informed the kitchen was closing and that the waiter would be back in 2 minutes at which point he must take our food order. This leads me to wonder why I was able to book a table for lunch at 3pm if that’s when the kitchen closes. The waiting staff were largely miserable, unfriendly, unwelcoming, condescending, and rude. We were made to feel like an utter inconvenience. Although the food was reasonably priced, when it arrived the quality didn’t justify it. When asking about the cooking of the burger I was informed by the charming waiter that it wasn’t able to be cooked anything other than ‘well done or very well done’. The wine was kept away from the table and thanks to the inattentive waiting staff we were often left with empty glasses. During our main course we were asked if we’d like pudding because if so we’d need to order immediately as the kitchen was closing. (We declined pudding and said we’d go elsewhere.) Considering this was at about 4.20pm and only 40 minutes before the kitchen opened again for dinner, I couldn’t really understand the issue. Once we’d finished eating the plates were cleared and we were told we had to vacate the table before 5pm as they were fully booked for the dinner sitting. The bill came, along with the card machine. It took five attempts to process card payment as signal to the machine was so poor. All in all and to say the least it was a thoroughly disappointing experience in every regard. We de-camped to nearby Las Iguanas where the staff we friendly, welcoming, and accommodating. The food and wine were appropriately priced and the atmosphere lively and engaging. We subsequently wished we’d lunched there and I would certainly advise anyone considering a visit to Skylon to instead book one of many nearby...

A very disappointing visit. When we booked we had left a note requesting a window table if available, so when we arrived the hostess checked and said one table was just being cleared and would be ready in a couple of minutes so we can sit at the bar until then. We ordered a drink at the bar and were left there for 45 minutes. My partner had to remind the hostess we were waiting and the look on her blank face confirmed we had been forgotten. We were then sat at a table, next to two other empty tables.. but the hostess kindly brought over two glasses of sparkling wine as a token.

We both had a cod dish which mentioned a sauce but there was no sauce in the dish which was subsequently quite dry, not helped with the fish being a little overdone. The empty plates were then left sitting with us for over half an hour - trying to catch the attention of a waiter was the game of the evening! One waiter seemed to be working overtime for the rest, running about whilst everyone else were dawdling. When it then came to the bill, the sparkling wine we were gifted had been charged! A hilarious end which they obviously took off the bill when we mentioned it but that shouldn’t have happened.

The restaurant has a nice atmosphere, but that’s where my praises stop. Whilst the view is nice, it’s spoilt by the big metal pillars in between each window (which could also do with a good wash!) as a lot of the tables are sadly directly in front of one. Completely overpriced food and they have a cheek to add an automatic 13% gratuity. Not...