The Drapers Arms — Restaurant in London

Unfortunately, my family and I did not have a good experience here and it could have easily been avoided. Here is what happened:

17:38     We placed an order for 6 x sharing plates and 2 x kids meals and was told that there was a 15 minute wait on food. Great!

17:53     Sure enough, 15 minutes later 4 out of our 6 sharing plates came out and we were told that the rest of our food would be out momentarily. We wait a few minutes and then decide to start eating.

18:08     We still had not received the rest of our food so I went to the bar to chase it up and was advised that they will check.

18:13     We received the remaining 2 out of 6 sharing plates that we were waiting for, which was 20 minutes after we received our first lot of sharing plates which we had already finished.

18:18     We finally received the two kids' meals 40 minutes after placing our original order and 25 minutes after receiving our first lot of food to the table. Poor kids :-(

When the last of our food came I asked why it took so long and the server simply said something about it being a crossover of shifts for the chefs but everything was handed over and 'sorry about that no worries'. Surely a crossover of shifts is something that happens all the time and should not result in half our order being so delayed?! No offer of free drinks or discount or anything and a very blasé response. The worst part of this was that it was the kids' meals that were delayed. Our 4 and 7 year old had to sit there whilst we ate, asking us when their food was coming and we kept saying soon but in reality, our food had clearly been forgotten about and when I chased it up it must have started being cooked then.

This was at the end of an enjoyable London day trip and this experience really put a downer on the end of the day. Given we spent £60 I would rather have gone to McDonalds for a third of the price which is a shame when the food was really nice, it was just marred by poor service and a lack of accountability. Even waiting 40 minutes to receive the food all at once would have been better than the drip feeding of plates we received.

This led to a stressful run back to the car whilst kids were still eating to save time for the 80 mile drive back home. It was not the pleasant family dinner experience that we had hoped for...

This please is a complete menace to somebody who wants tranquility in peaceful afternoon. The food is horrible, the customer service is ZERO to NONE, every single bartender as females as I could see, they were just gossiping about other people while I'm standing there waiting for someone to serve me. Finally, when I got served and got my food, the food looked disgusting and smelled disgusting already - I gave back the food and made one of the managers takes it. He said it was bad instead of horrendous - never got an apology from the chef (the man who tried the food promised me he will tell the chef). The man apparently in charge of the whole situation told me "we are sorry, for the next pint just look for me" I ordered another pint and didn't even bother to look for him and paid. The last pint I had I was like "okay, let me talk to this professional guy" I couldn't find him, his colleague gave me (without him being present) a 20% discount that I never accepted in the first place as its useless - I felt disrespected that the man wanted me to call him (I thought for a pint because my meal price was over a pint price) but he only offered me 20% - so I declined and paid the full amount of the pint since I found it extremely disrespectful and out of order. I paid. I gave my empty pint back, I told my friend to leave and ordered a Uber and literally found...

First time at the Drapers Arms last Friday night - I'll be back for drinks & the music, but the food was a problem. Ordered the melted Camembert Cheese, it arrived about a quarter melted & the rest still hard, yet when I took a large chunk of the melted part I bit down on a huge RAW garlic clove & had to spit it out! I couldn't get that gross taste out of my mouth all night. Chicken Schnitzel tasted fine but was very small - could you make them bigger & just charge more please? The Seafood Linguine tasted ok except for the dangerous small bits of sharp broken mussel shell throughout the dish. It got swept up in my pasta & biting down on it really hurt - if you damaged someone's teeth or cut open their mouth you could be sued, so more care with this please. Also the mussels in the dish were rubbery so way overcooked. All food came out together, by the time we finished the starter the mains were barely warm. Cocktails were great though - Watermelon Gin & Tonic & Margarita. I think your kitchen staff need supervision because it's clear...