The Big Plate Cafe — Restaurant in London

Good tasty cafe, but...

I enjoyed the food of this cafe in Blackheath. They do the standard food breakfast, lunch and snacks like other cafes. You can eat in or takeaway. It seems to get busy. We came around 10am, and it later got slightly busy.

I ordered the Set 1 English breakfast, bake beans was good and sausage was very nice. It comes with 4 toasted slices of thick bread, which they butter for you. Price of the food was decent, portion however was questionable.

The decor and environment were clean, big space and the chairs were very comfortable. The staffs were nice and active, they take away your empty plates when you are done. They approach to take your order. You pay for your meal when done. Toilet was clean as well, compliment sweets or toothpick you can choose from till after you've paid for your meal. Your slice bread comes in a separate plate which is good. Instead of the bread coming with the meal that makes the bread soggy, as other cafe do. They also give a nice biscuit with your tea/coffee.

Those were the good things, now for the bad. My mug for tea came in a chipped off mug. This may not be a big deal but if I am paying for a meal that is pricey, and if I go to another cafe, will they give me tea in a chipped off mug? I don't think so. Even if a waiter is used to drinking chipped cup from home, does it make it right to serve a paying customer drink in a chipped mug? Before we left, another customer approached the till to complain about her drink being served in a dirty chipped mug. If others can complain about this, it means my minor complain about chipped mug should be taken serious. Standard in this area needs to be improved.

Also I noticed that my plate was smaller than everyone else. I don't see the purpose of set 1, because the bake beans filled half the plate. What I got doesn't really justify the price. If set 1 menu is a small portion, then I can understand why my place was small.

When we were about to order, the menu says we can adjust only 1 item from a food menu. But when we requested the bread to be removed from the Turkish breakfast and be substituted for more salad, the waiter said they cannot do that but other item can be adjusted. Which I don't understand. But First Choice English menu baked beans was replaced with extra salad as we requested. But the salad portion was very small compared to bake bean size and other people's pictures!

And finally the con I would give is the order of serving. Our drinks was served first. And then our bread came. Then our meal came 5 mins later after the bread. I would discourage them from doing this because the bread is not a Starter menu, it is part of the main dish. If the bread comes first, you have 2 choices to either, start eating or wait until the rest of your food arrives, which means your bread will start going lukewarm or getting cold.

On Google it said there is parking available. But when I walked in to ask them, they said there is no parking, and the parking behind the restaurant's alleyway, they don't manage as it isn't there's.

I can understand this is a cafe, it is not a 5 star Michelin cafe/restaurant. But my gripe is the chipped mug, questionable set 1 menu, and order of food serving. But come on, if I would get this kind of service, what is wrong with me going to another cafe that would give me slight better service!? The standard needs slight improvement.

I really want to give this café 3 stars as I see this is what it deserves, but I didn't want to be too harsh and hard to please customer. But if I give 3 stars, I know they will try to improve. If I give 4 stars, they may be glad of the score but will not take my critic serious.

Though I rate them a 4 stars, hopefully they do improve with...

The food was always decent here but it appears the place has new owners who certainly don’t care about the quality of the food or customers at all we popped in and my wife had a roast lamb dinner it was a mish mash of frozen veg the potatoes had been deep fried and the batter pudding was full of grease 2 slices of dried out lamb I had a chicken kebab which I must add was tasty with the previous owners this was just rank the salad was limp and browning I called over the totally unsociable waitress who shrugged her shoulders muttering something I couldn’t understand Avoid this place the quality has...

Dissapointing. We ordered 2 Quarter Pounder with cheese plain which were very good BUT the portion of supposedly Large Chips were burnt like cooked on Old Oil, hard and outrageously small portion!! Like LITERALLY in a small blue bowl, desgustingly small and burnt… very upseting, why? Because we do not eat that much you guys have to give us a portion for kids menu? What is then “THE BIG PLATE”? And expensive, considering the area, facing a busy road… at least CLEAN the plants’...