The Castle, Harrow — Restaurant in London

This is the nearest pub to my office - there are 21 of us here - and we often have company events here, also going there for the quizzes occasionally. A friend was visiting from out of town and I said we would go to The Castle because they have good, tasty food and know how to look after their customers.

Sadly, on today's showing, this is no longer the case.

We arrived, bought and paid for our drinks and then sat down to study the menu.

Back to the bar and my friend said, "can you please just do me a cheese and cucumber sandwich?" The young man behind the bar said yes and turned to me. I said, "which would you recommend, the fish and chips or the linguine?" He thought for a second and then said, "definitely the fish and chips." I said, "OK, I'll have that, but no tartare sauce and, if possible, regular peas rather than crushed ones." He asked me to repeat it, which I did, wrote it down and we returned to the table.

About 10 minutes later he came into the dining room and said, "we are unable to make a cheese sandwich." When we asked why, he said, "the chef is refusing to make it because it is not on the menu"!

We challenged this and, as he was digging his heels in, I pointed out that I am a regular customer from a local business and I cannot believe or accept that they are unable to make a simple sandwich. He said, "oh yeah, which business is that then?" Nice one; now you are suggesting the customer is a liar...

No movement, so we asked to see the manager. He arrived and, at our invitation, sat down at the table. We told him what had happened and he said, "what do you mean by a sandwich?" We replied; bread, butter, cheese, cucumber."

Apparently determined to be as unhelpful as possible, he said, "we have more than one type of cheese." "Ok, tell us and we'll choose." "We have 3 types of bread." "Ok, tell us and we'll choose."

He then said (again) , "what do you mean by a sandwich?" We replied; bread, butter, cheese, cucumber."

He still seemed determined to do everything to avoid helping the customers (that's the people who pay his wages), so we again said that we can't understand why any chef would refuse to make a cheese sandwich (although I would describe anyone giving such a refusal as a downmarket cook; certainly not a chef).

He said, "I don't believe the chef has been told what you have asked for." My reply: "so was the guy who took the order lying when he said the chef is refusing to make the sandwich we are asking for?" No reply.

He then said (again) , "what do you mean by a sandwich?" We replied; bread, butter, cheese, cucumber."

I said, right, we are off to eat somewhere else." He giggled and said, "you don't want to do that." "Actually, yes we do, because you won't give us the food we are asking for."

He then said (again) , "what do you mean by a sandwich?" I said, "how many times are you going to keep asking the same question? Please tell us now if you are able to give us the food we are asking for." He said yes and walked away.

A couple of minutes later he came back and asked me if I had ordered the smoked fish or the fish and chips. Strange question that. The smoked fish does not come with chips, or tartare sauce, or peas! Why would the guy at the bar have thought for a second that I was ordering it? I said, yet again, "fish and chips, but no tartare sauce and, if possible, regular peas rather than crushed ones."

The food arrived, delivered by the person who originally took the order. A perfectly serviceable cheese and cucumber sandwich and fish and chips with a nice dish of tartare sauce. I said, "I specified no tartare sauce" and removed it from the plate. He picked it up and walked away. Of course he didn't bother to apologise.

The Castle is no longer on my list of places to visit, whether with friends or my...

Unfortunately, this pub doesn’t live up to its expectation at all. How it’s still got over 4 stars on Google is beyond me. It used to be great, but within the last couple of years, it’s seriously gone down hill. My partner and I used to love this pub. The general vibe, the acceptance of dogs and the location. However, there have been numerous situations where the experience has been dreadful. We’ve kept coming back because we’re desperate to like it, but it’s just terrible. In one of the first instances, we came for a roast and they just completely forgot about us. It took about an hour and a half for our food to come out and we had to ask twice, whilst food came out around us. Whilst we were given a percentage off by the manager, when the bill came out, the waitress who had just started her shift made a really awkward comment how she’d “heard about” us and how we “wouldn’t be paying the service charge”. We appreciate it was a joke, but we’ve both worked in hospitality ourselves so this comment made us both feel extremely uncomfortable. The joke didn’t land. We had another less than satisfactory experience with roast dinners there, we went back because when it’s good it’s great, but clearly when it’s bad, it’s terrible. It’s almost as if there’s no in between, and we got to the point where we were almost just expecting for something to be wrong. On this occasion, we were told at about 3/4pm, that the kitchen had “run out of potatoes” so we were told we could wait for 30 minutes for them to get more. We weren’t in a rush, so said it was fine. 30 minutes went by, and they still didn’t have any, we were offered an alternative to which we agreed to, but it left us waiting about 45 minutes to an hour for food. Luckily, on this occasion, the waiter was kind. Myself and a friend also came in on Christmas Eve 2023, we ordered a bottle of Prosecco (a pretty standard order for Christmas eve) and the bartender who brought over the bottle said “would you like to open it yourself?”. Whether this was a genuine offer for a bit of fun, or her just deflecting the fact that she couldn’t open a bottle of Prosecco, I don’t know. I assume the latter to be honest, and a bartender that can’t even open a bottle of Prosecco is quite unfathomable to me. The last straw was unfortunately our recent experience. I went up to the bar to order a drink that required ice. I was told by the waitress that it wasn’t possible to order a drink with ice, as they were out of ice??? Quite frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever in my life gone to a pub that doesn’t have any ice. Surely, you would just go out and buy some to make this work? The whole thing was very odd, and the bartender’s attitude was sadly quite rude and dismissive. There was no offer of an alternative and it was just a bit awkward to be honest. It’s such a shame, because this pub has such potential. I don’t know whether it’s potentially new management or just neglect, but it’s not even remotely worth the price or the journey. We really have tried to give it a chance because Harrow doesn’t offer many nice pubs, but it feels that management just rely on the location and wealth of the clientele to therefore not bother on the quality of the pub. So therefore, don’t waste your money, or the energy to visit this pub, you’ll be left feeling highly...

I wont be back to eat until they buck their ideas up and stop taking us for mugs.

Ate there on Saturday night in the Garden: 1.The service was stunningly slow, disinterested and borderline rude. We arived at 7:45 - by 8:15 we finally managed to get someone to take an order.

Food started to arrive at 8:40 at which point the bored staff told us we'd have to leave the garden by 9. last food arrived at 8:45. Nice relaxed environment it was not.

The food we ordered was poor. No other way to put it. 2 dishes we ordered were no longer available. The burger was pathetic, small and cold. (it arrived on a plate where half the plate was empty. no salad garnish etc - just some fries and a small cold burger). Not £17.50 worth

The pork chop was supposed to come with pommes Anna, sliced potatoes with a garlic butter - instead came with a lumpy mash. No Veg at all. crackling was floppy not crackly. So a chop and some lumpy mash with a smear of Dijon mustard cost £21.

Then we waited about 5 minutes

Then the fish and chips arrived, was Ok, standard, and the

Chicken Supreme was (i suspect) served in a mushroom sauce that was akin to a can of soup. Oh - and it wasn't Girolle sauce - not a girolle in sight. And - no veg at all.

The only green vegetable over all 4 dishes were peas with the fish and chips.

Beer is expensive of course - but £13.60 for 2 pints is a push.

We were given another table in the pub after being hurridly ejected from the garden and were offered Dessert menus - which we agreed to. Only to be told that the kitchen was now closed so we couldnt have any.

All in all - very poor. Expensive and...