The Blue Legume Islington — Restaurant in London

We had a very disappointing visit here on Saturday 23rd April. A table of six was booked for 14:00 and I arrived on time and was seated. After about five minutes a waitress (dark hair and glasses incredibly sullen looking) came over and asked if I wanted to move.

I explained that I was happy where I was and, as I wasn't the one who booked the table, it was best to wait for the person who made the booking to arrive so they could make the decision to move if they wanted to. (I wasn't sure if they had booked a specific table.)

She then asked "Why don't you want to sit over there?" I explained again. The rest of party arrived, and we had a look at the menu.

Another waitress (blonde) asked what we would like to drink, we asked for the drinks menu. We asked to order cocktails. She called over the dark haired waitress and said "They want to order cocktails." The dark haired waitress instead of addressing us whispered into our waitress' ear. Our waitress then relayed to us the "We don't serve cocktails during the day."

Though disappointed we order two bottles of prosecco as we were celebrating a friend's birthday.

The food arrived, we ate and asked if there were any desserts on offer. Though there was no desserts as such, various pieces of cake (Lemon Polenta, Red Velvet etc) were offered with ice cream if required.

The cakes were served with our main course plates on the table. We had to ask for them to be cleared half way into them desserts being eaten. The restaurant wasn't particularly busy and there were at least six staff chatting around the bar area. There was no reason for main course plates to be left on the table. Though I had finished my main some 30 minutes beforehand (knife and fork placed together on plate) it was not cleared until my friends had almost finished their desserts.

We asked for the bill and it was brought to us with the 12% Service Charge added. Though it states "Optional service charge of 12.5% will be added to your bill" on the menu, it doesn't mention on the bill itself that service is optional (a bit crafty.) Had we not spotted it on the menu we would have queried it as the service was lacking on a number of fronts.

We advised the manager that we would not be paying the service charge. We divided the bill between five of us (as treating our friend for their birthday) and explained to the dark haired waitress that we would be paying the amount of £32.40 on five separate cards. She took our payments however still tried to take another payment from the sixth person on our table whose birthday it was.

We did wonder if she tried to do this so that the Service Charge would be paid?

The service was severely lacking. Dark haired waitress with glasses was sullen from the outset and looked like she didn't want to be there. Had the service been friendly we would have had coffee however, we felt very unwelcome.

If we had been rude, demanding and generally obnoxious we would have probably expected the disinterest from dark haired waitress with, however we weren't and would be quite happy to have left a very large tip had the service been better.

Heard good things about this restaurant however yesterday's experience...

I visit this restaurant regularly and have always appreciated the quality of the food and the attentive service. On my recent visit, though, I left feeling disappointed and, frankly, a bit taken advantage of.

I arrived at 3.30pm and my friend joined me five minutes later. We were given menus when we sat down and then left unattended for about twenty minutes. When we tried to place our order, we were told the menu had changed at quarter to four and were given a new menu. Online, it states the menu changes at four, but either way, nobody informed us of this when we arrived and nobody approached us to take our order before the switch.

At first, we agreed to order from the new menu, not realising that it meant quite different prices for exactly the same food. In some cases, the price increase was significant, and the new menu was actually smaller, with fewer options, even though the dishes were the same.

The timing left us feeling that we were deliberately kept waiting until the higher-priced menu came into effect. As a regular guest, this was disappointing and felt out of character with the care and integrity I’ve experienced here before.

The food remains excellent and the staff are usually wonderful, which is why this experience stood out so much. I hope you will take this feedback seriously, as it comes from someone who has genuinely enjoyed...

We had a reservation for 7 people for a birthday party on Saturday evening. We bought a set menu, the food was terrible. It was very heavy and had no taste. They used cumin spice a lot. Almost all of the meals were ready-made takeaway and fried food. For the main course there were two plates for 7 people and there were 5 meatballs and falafel in them, they were uneaten because of the cumin. Feels like chef didnt change the oil long time. Only 3 35cl raki and tap water were given to our table for 7 people. There was no Salgam or tea or coffee service. Paid £80 per person for the set menu and we were given turkish mezes and then they gave us a terrible stuffed meatball. They said there were 3 main courses in the set menu, but dessert was not provided, we asked for it and they said no. We paid close to £500 for 7 people and it was not worth it at all. There was no choice of set menu only what was brought to the table and this was small in portion and poor in quality and taste. There wasn't even any entertainment just a generic Turkish Spotify play list. If you want to have a celebration on Saturday evening, I definitely do not...