The Culpeper — Restaurant in London

The service was really poor. The whole afternoon was shambolic. We arrived very early to our reservation, with the hopes of grabbing a drink before. We were lucky enough to get a roof top table (first come first served) and after about 15mins getting the waiters attention, managed to order drinks (including 3 frozen margaritas). The waiter left us, made other drinks and served a few other tables before coming back and confessing that he forgot the order. We reordered - off he went. He then came back to tell us that the margarita machine was broken so we cancelled the order as we were due at our table soon. In 30 mins, we were not able to receive drinks.

The fun started when we got to our table…. We were shown our seats in the pub. We waited for menus until someone turned up to take our order - I requested a menu as I was unable to order without this. The waitress told us she was waiting for us to order first before bringing them over (??). She shuffled off to get them. We ordered a few drinks - a Bellini, a “bitter sun” (a cocktail), a Timothy Taylor’s and a 3 sods (a guest ale) along with 5 roasts. The waitress looks confused but went off. Another member off staff came over to confirm our drinks and went off. A third member of staff came over to confirm our drinks and confirmed that people did not know what the “3 Sods” were but she will sort out.

The beers and a Bellini arrived but alas the bitter sun did not. Our dinner arrived and we asked where the bitter sun was and asked for some apple sauce and horseradish to go along with the meal. Despite chasing, the apple sauce and the “bitter sun” never arrived, with the 3rd waitress telling us that they were in fact out of apple sauce. No sign of the “bitter sun” still.

My sister tried the “3 sods” and ordered a pint herself. A four waitress appeared with a pint saying that they did not have the “3 sods” to which my dad said, “yes you do, I’m drinking it?”. The waitress began saying to my dad “no you are drinking a Timothy Taylor’s” and arguing quite loudly, despite my dad having ordered the drink and drinking it. She eventually left, leaving us with a drink that was not what we ordered.

After our meal, another member of staff turned up and asked us to confirm (again) what the last drink was - so for the final time we confirmed it was a “bitter sun” (n.b. This is a cocktail on their standard menu). They responded saying that they thought we ordered a bitter (despite that never arriving).

This disaster of a meal took 2 hours. It was an embarrassment to an establishment that I sadly was looking forward to visiting. Absolutely appalling.

Only redeeming factor was that the food was decent but 100% not...

We recently spent the weekend in London and stayed at The Culpepper. The location is brilliant, good value, close to London Liverpool Station making traveling from Stansted an absolute breeze and the Aldgate East tube station is only a 5 min walk away from the hotel. Spitalfields Market and Truman Brewery Market are also near by and there are loads of wonderful restaurants and shops in the immediate area.

From the moment we arrived the staff were friendly and helpful, holding our bags while we waited for our room to be ready. The welcome drink and the 10% discount on food and drink is a really lovely touch. We had lunch at The Culpepper on the first day. We had the hummus and flat breads, burratta with kale and hazelnuts, cheese croquettes and pumpkin pie for dessert. All the food was exceptional. Very fresh ingredients and so so tasty. Their drinks menu is extensive with many local beers, fun cocktails, extensive wine list and even some wonderful non alcoholic choices. I was interested in trying an orange wine that they had on the menu and they let me taste it first which was really nice.

We had dinner the second night we stayed and once again the food was exceptional. We had the bavette, monkfish and mackerel pate. The food is such high quality and the portion sizes are perfect, not too much but not too little. We also had a number of cocktails, the Fig & Bubbles being my favourite and it was lovely then to pop up the stairs to bed when we were finished.

Even though the hotel is situated over a pub and restaurant we never noticed any noise from below, even though it was massively busy when we returned to the hotel on Friday evening. The room was nicely decorated, with a stack of books about the local area being a very nice touch.

Breakfast is served at their sister hotel just down the street, which gave us a nice little walk each morning and once again the food was superb.

We are returning to London next summer for another trip and will be staying at The Culpeper again. We look forward to hopefully experiencing the rooftop bar as it was closed due to the...

We went to the Culpepper for Sunday roast for Mother's Day (2022), party of 3. We went there at 5pm (roast dinner service finished at 5.30pm) Positives: The service was amazing. We had 2 servers throughout our roast dinner and they were both outstanding. So lovely and not overly attentive (didn't ask "how's everything" right when your mouth is full of roast potato and Yorkshire pud) but just enough to always be on hand if you wanted sauce etc. The roast came out really quickly and was very nice. 2 of us had beef and 1 of us had pork. Both meats were very nice. Beef came out with this potato rosti type thing which was yummy. Pork had classic roasties. Yorkshire pud flavour was on point even though it was burnt (all 3 were burnt). Greens and veg were great too. Overall a very nice roast. The pub itself had lots of seats by the windows with lots of light and was really nice. Decent lager and Ale selection. They also do cocktails.

Negatives: Whilst the pub was lovely, to me it could do with a little bit more of a vibe. We sat downstairs in the main bit. There were people there but it was fairly subdued, I could've done with a little bit more of a buzz and maybe some music. The roast itself, whilst nice enough, was not good enough for the £20 price tag. It's just not worth that much money. The pork roast was served with 1 roast potato only (cut in half), beef roast had two fairly smallish and thinly cut slices of beef (although it may have something to do with the fact we came at the end of the day). Cauliflower was not a cauli cheese - just cauliflower. Also...the gravy. My god it was more like a very watery jus and maybe had 2 tablespoons poured over the whole roast. I could barely taste it. I'm a saucy person and I demand more gravy! And not a watery one either!

I probably wont go back there for a roast dinner, nor a Friday night vibe with friends, but maybe a weeknight date and try some of the cocktails and other...