The Candlemaker — Restaurant in London

UPDATE: Had a great chat with Leigh and went back to give it another chance since they were very open to our feedback. Stopped in for Lunch and can say the 50% off from September probably affected the team, which led to our poor experiences. This time around, they were very polite and the food was delicious (plenty of sauce 😉). We had the Ribs and Chicken Wings for lunch (have added photos) - can say they were delicious! Happy to upgrade my original review from 2 stars to 4 (3.5 isn’t possible so will round up).

Original Review: After a few times in since they re-opened, and with the hope it would be better, I can’t give it more than two stars.

Food: Brisket is dryer than my trainers; meats are lacking sauce (and hard to find BBQ sauce, must be a shortage?) and overall disappointing bbq (save the £25 Rib) - Chicken wings were also extremely dry (ordered Buffalo, but assume it was on the same delivery order as the BBQ sauce as there was none on the wings).

Service: Having just opened, you’d think they care about locals and creating an inviting space… but all the staff (save one very nice older gentleman who I assume was one of the managers) are uninviting. They seem to expect us to cherish the privilege of coming into the pub we’ve been visiting for years and have a very ‘oh well, tough luck’ approach when communicating (main reason we will be avoiding and visiting the other great spots in the area)

Atmosphere: hard to tell, you can’t walk into the back, no dogs allowed (because of one person complaining I’m told) and no vibe because of the aforementioned attitude from staff.

Check it out while the food is half off, but other than that ‘carrot’ I don’t...

Came here on Sunday for leaving drinks. There were around 15 of us and we'd booked beforehand. I'd never been to the pub before but was pleasantly surprised when I walked in - it's cosy (helped by the narrow shape) and I like how it's decorated. However, I was really taken aback by the rudeness of service we encountered. I don't think I have particularly high standards from pub staff, just a bit of eye contact and a non aggressive tone is good enough for me. But these guys on shift at this point were acting like we'd offended them by just being there. The blond female barmaid was so unbelievably rude in her manner that everyone was shocked - when she came over with burgers she stood there looking angry, when noone claimed a haloumi burger immediately (and I mean immediately) she snapped "Well someone ordered it". Later when she was clearing plates she complained that every time she came over we got in her way so she couldn't clean up. A male member of staff, though less abjectly rude was far from friendly. When I asked for some sauce, he accused someone else on the table of being greedy and stealing mine. He complained to us that "apparently I'm serving drinks and food today" in this weird bitter way as he slammed down the pretty average and diminutive roasts. All of my friends who went to the bar came back specifically commenting on how rudely they were treated. And we're Londoners, it's not like we expect open arms and small talk, just not outright aggression. I'm sure not all of the staff are like this, but at present this bizarre serving style risks undermining a...

Such a weird and disappointing experience here. Based on the other reviews it's hard to tell if it was an extreme one-off or not.

Drinks - it took a whole hour to get 2 cocktails delivered to the table in a half full restaurant and it ended up being two completely incorrect drinks. The server said "they're coming" 6 times. When we did get what we wanted it was poor at best, and for a place with such a huge whisky menu an old-fashion shouldn't be that hard to make. Some of the soft drinks we had were flat and tasteless.

Food - For a place that specialises in BBQ, how did they mess it up so badly?! The driest Jacobs ladder rib we've ever had. Lukewarm chicken wings, a cold to touch brisket. Food took 50 mins to come out. Poor all round. We gave up on sending stuff back and accepted defeat given we'd been seated 1.5 hours ago.

Service - for somewhere with a small amount of covers, the service was still bonkers slow. Bar staff constantly forgetting drinks. Server nowhere to be found. They took the service charge off our bill "for all the issues" and did give us some free Bourbon to make up for a bad experience but checking the bill again after we left we realised we'd been charged for drinks they agreed to take off the bill (which is totally on us for not checking).

No idea what went wrong for us as the other reviews seem to go against our experience, but for a typical Friday night it shouldn't have been so bad. Loads of decent BBQ places to...