The Angel Oak — Restaurant in London

It was my friend's birthday today and as I stood on the train on my way to Peckham to see him I felt increasingly guilty that I hadn’t got him a present. I hoped that at some point on my journey from the station to the Angel Oak that something might jump out at me but unfortunately nothing did. I then arrived at the table to find all three friends sat with pints full, so a birthday drink was out the question. No problem though, we were both hungry and so a birthday meal presented itself as the ideal gift. A small, stomach filling gesture to show how much he means to me. After acquiring a menu and a short time looking over it, we both landed on an option we thought we’d be happy with.

On first glance the burger sounded fine. It had all the right frilly language that “gastropubs” put on their menu’s to make you think “hey, this might be pretty good actually”, but don’t be fooled. If their chef was half as good as their copywriter than I probably wouldn’t have had to write this. Let me tell you how it read: "Short rib & flank burger, smoked Applewood Cheddar, burnt onions, bone marrow crumb, gherkins, skin-on fries." How could you possibly go wrong with that?

Now let me tell you how it tasted.

To start from the outside in, we begin this culinary catastrophe with the bun itself, which was probably the second best thing about this burger after the lettuce. It was cold, but it was bread so I can’t knock it too much. Beneath this comes the bone marrow crumb, an ingredient so pretentious and disingenuous that it could rival Prince Andrew’s “I can’t sweat” interview.

Then arrives the cheese and what should have been a thick, salty, smoky slice of the ched was instead a tasteless, translucent layer of cheese so thin and patchy that it looked like the head of a 38 year old on his way back from Turkey after receiving a discount hair transplant.

Now enter the patty itself, a piece of meat so tough that it could have gone round for round with Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee and Clint Eastwood without even breaking a sweat. Perhaps it was this lack of perspiration that ensured a burger so dry that all it would have taken was a flick of my cigarette to set the whole thing ablaze.

At this point, the non-existent burnt onions and singular gherkin were probably a blessing. I can imagine it’s probably pretty damn difficult to ruin a pre-pickled cucumber but I’m sure the kitchen team at the Angel Oak could probably manage it.

Come here for a drink, good service and enjoy the beer garden but please, at all costs,...

Had the beef roast dinner (£17.50), and I can say that I was most disappointed with both the food and the services:

Portions are shockingly small, two very thin slices of roast beef, one small Yorkshire pudding and smallest of spoonfuls of parsnip purée The meal was cold Potatoes unseasoned and some were not cooked completely and slightly raw Horseradish is very odd, very mild taste and whipped, almost as it’s a horseradish/mayo When I brought the raw potato to the attention of the server I was asked “ok, what do you want me to do, would you like me to tell someone?” I replied that yea I would like the potato replaced. The server returned with replacement potato’s, but said “the chef would like your original potato’s back to see if they are in fact raw” I responded by saying “sure but it’s only one potato that is really big and has clearly just not had enough time to cook along with the other (smaller) potato’s.” The server then rolled her eyes, took my potato along with the other replacement potatoes back to the kitchen, leaving me with one potato to replace the one taken. I found this odd as I wondered what would now happen with the other potato’s she brought out, as surely these should not now be given to another customer.

Overall the experience was not good, and the food was poor quality and quantity for the price. The food was tasteless it’s only tasty part were the carrots. I would never come back here for a roast, nor would recommend it to anyone.

Edit: the response from the manager appears to be a copy and paste job from another complaint regarding your roast dinners. I recognise the part where they say “complimented on the portion size” I doubt this feedback is...

Service was okay by waitress, but food was sooooo slow. There was hardly anyone else in there and it took about 30 mins for our starter which was £7 for ONE mushroom and a couple of leaves of spinach which was ridiculous. They obviously needed more staff on as we could see our starter had come to the pass and the waitress was standing right next to it sorting out a bill discrepancy for ages and we could see our starter getting cold while she did something else. Not her fault as she clearly wanted to sort out what she was doing first, but shouldn't be at the expense of a customers hot food. Hardly any choice at all for vegetarians, and menu is actually pretty limited anyway. Boyfriend ordered the beef burger which he said wasn't nice and didn't come with all the things it said it would. Chips were frozen and horrible, and I had sweet potato fries which were also frozen and not nice. They forgot my salad as well which was a starter size £6.50 - literally the opposite of what you'd expect. It suggested warm salad but it was cold and had a couple of bits of stilton and walnuts - generally unpleasant so I didn't eat it and sent it back as it took too long to arrive. I wouldn't normally do this but I was so starving that my chips had filled me up. £13 for my boyfriends burger and chips is steep for what it was, but the starter was just a joke. Seriously £7 for one small mushroom. They must have new kitchen staff as I've been before and it was really nice!! The waitress was kind enough to take the service charge and salad off but still came to £29 with one beer for some pretty substandard food....