The Actress — Restaurant in London

Initial impressions were great. Really friendly bar staff, a cracking new beer which I’d never tried before, big open plan bar/eating area, with a wood fired pizza oven…… and then in the space of 30mins, Lucifer opened the gates of Hell!

Strong words you may feel, but hear me out.

We arrived at around 16:30 and the Parking Gods must have been smiling, nabbed a spot just outside. I was anticipating a forced march, 14 changes of buses, a short haul easyJet flight to get to the pub after finding a parking space, but no, right outside. Our spirits were high, so fortuitous, a spring in our step for the 10 paces to the pub. Things were looking good!

Inside, maybe 10 -15 people: 4 guys on their 2nd round of Guinness, certainly not going to be their last round, happy, laughing, lots of camaraderie out for an early Friday night session.

A dad tucking into what looked like a really nice pizza with his two young kids, a couple of 30 something mums, one with a pram snuggling her young babe chatting away to her friend, a cheeky bottle of something white and cold between them.

“This is really nice” I commented to my partner, “Hmmmm” she said. “Why the frown ?” I questioned as I supped a particularly tasty pint. “Just wait” was all she said. Being totally flummoxed at the cryptic reply I turned my attention to the menu. As I read It dawned on me what may lie ahead. Standard pub farye but the clue was in the explanation for each item. A burger and fries is a burger and fries but the way it was described it could have been written by some top team at a glossy corporate advertising agency. “ The cow who donated his/her/they body was hand reared by artisan farmers, 21 generations of honest toil, fed on ecologically sourced and sustainable grass, only on south facing slopes, lovingly crafted by our chef who learnt his/her/they craft at the hands of 12 Michelin starred Antoine de Rosbiff after 7 gruelling years working his way up to his current position, where he/she/they then transformed this beef aligning it with brioche made from the finest organic 00 flour hand ground by peasants high up in the massif central using only water sourced deep within …..” my description is highly exaggerated and said tongue in cheek, but you get my drift.

Back to the point. Whilst reading this gastronomic hyperbole I became aware that the background noise level in the pub had risen, not unusual you may say for a pub on a late Friday afternoon. However, it was the source of the increase in sonic activity that got my attention.

In less than the time it takes to imbibe a beer, the ambience of the pub had transformed into a very large crèche ! A battalion of Boden clad small people treating the pub as their personal play zone, zipping along on their Nike Air Max’s, weaving around the tables, sometimes successful, sometimes not, while the parents sat at their tables on their phones tapping away oblivious to the carnage their offspring were creating. The double doors of the pub were opening and closing faster than in an old spaghetti western as more of the identikit mums and dads piled in.

We sat taking in the tableaux around us. Don’t get me wrong, between us we have raised 8 kids, some still at school, but never did we allow them to behave in the manner in front of us, with the parents completely oblivious to what was going on. More importantly, making little or no effort to constrain their kids and teach them the importance of civility.

You may argue that it’s the end of the week and everyone can have a bit of time to unwind, I get that. My point being that a pub is for everyone and that is the point, for everyone. Be respectful. We didn’t come out to be party to kids laying on the floor close to the entrance having a temper tantrum at full volume whilst the dad says sotto voce “don’t do that” and when ignored, the wailing banshee just increases the volume, goes back to his MacBook.

This is a long review, I actually like the place, we were going to eat but changed our minds. My advice, visit before the Nappy Valley...

This happened back in September, but I went in on a Sunday to watch Chelsea v Liverpool and had an all-round woeful experience.

Firstly, I booked a table in advance and made a special note that I wanted to watch the football. When I arrived, the team tried to place me in the section on the left-hand side in a seat right by the window. The TV in that section is tiny by any pub's standards, it's probably smaller than your average household's TV and you can barely see what's going on from that table, plus they were having trouble with the Sky Box so they couldn't even get the channel up.

I asked to move and was told no originally, before they gave myself and my girlfriend a table right near the projector screen.

There was a table to my left that was three men and two very young children. Obviously in these times people need to keep a respectable distance, but for some reason the children kept climbing on the sofa over to my table and kicking it. I've got younger siblings so I have patience but I asked a bartender if they could politely ask the parents/guardians to stop them from doing that and it never happened.

I ordered drinks for the table, just two glasses of coke through the app. The bar wasn't particularly busy, but it still took 15 minutes for them to arrive. There was no option to order the roast dinner on the app, so we waited patiently for a bartender to come over and take the order but, again, we were ignored and forgotten about.

These might seem like small things, but I've worked behind many bars before and I understand people want to come in on a Sunday and enjoy their weekend. I had been to the Actress many times before and loved it but on that day it felt like none of the staff could really be bothered.

I left my girlfriend at the table, stepped outside and called The Cherry Tree to see if they had any tables available. The guy said he could sort something out for me, so I left the Actress went over to The Cherry Tree and had a cracking afternoon eating a great roast in the pub garden in a great location for the outdoor TV. For me, that was exemplary customer service. I've been back to the Cherry Tree several times since with friends and family, can you guess how many times I've been back to The Actress since?

Very...

This pub used to be so busy and it’s a lot quieter then used to be, I always pop down as it’s my local and easily spend £50 if not more always buy food and today first time ever I really didn’t like the cocktail the staff member tried it and was like that’s disgusting and not drinkable so they agreed with me I asked for a wine instead to keep it safe and the manager then disagreed and said I must buy the wine I would of happily paid the difference or paid for the wine and had the awful cocktail removed however the manager who did not taste it said I had to pay and I just think he could of been nice to let me swap my drink considering how much I come in the pub and bring people to this pub safe to say I’d rather go give my custom to somewhere else like the bishop: it’s a shame that pubs start going quiet but they never see it’s the small things that keep a customer happy. He clearly don’t have the Christmas spirit anyway the food is nice wine is nice but I won’t be returning because he could of easily put that drink down as waste instead he rather stand polishing cutlery watching the football looking grumpy FYI he didn’t even sip the cocktail to say that there was nothing wrong with it. Would of stayed for more drinks but he annoyed me so we had a glass wine each and left to go to another pub with nicer customer service note to self never try something new in a pub cause u have to pay the over price for the taste. Even today spent £30 would of been £50 if he was a decent person to not make us pay for the AWFUL cocktail funny pubs don’t look after their regulars like they used to well sorry...