The Duke of Kent, Ealing — Restaurant in London

Food was very nice indeed. I had a crab, shrimp and crayfish cocktail which was lovely and light and fresh. Followed it up with lamb which was scrumptious. Two lamb cutlets done to perfection, a shredded lamb cake (like a large home-made fishcake but lamb), beautifully cooked veg. Pudding of treacle tart was a little disappointing but I was stuffed by then so it was sheer greed on my part to eat it in the first place.

The one thing they do need to get sorted out is service which is poor. The waiting staff were very nice and had a good personal touch but there's either not enough staff or they aren't trained properly or they aren't organised properly - or all three. We were asked within about 5 minutes of sitting down whether we wanted to order (far too soon) and then it was left far too long before coming back to us. We had a real problem from then on in getting anyone's attention and my companion was reduced to having to hang halfway off her chair to see the till and lie in wait for a staff member to turn up. The friendliness made us feel welcome but this is not good service and turns what should be a relaxing evening meal into something rather more tense than it should be.

All in all ok but I also had a friend who took two people to dinner there recently and who had a poor service experience. Her welcome was being told at 8.05 that they needed to finish eating by 9pm as the kitchen shut at that time. Then the waitress discovered that one of my friends companions was from the same part of Europe as her and felt it was ok to criticise a Fullers beer as not being very good and not as good as the one she and he would be used to. Not the end of the world but not professional.

There seems to be a trend for pubs around Ealing to hire very young staff (minimum wage, I guess) which in itself is not a problem but they are not trained properly and are not experienced and there ends up being a problem with service. The Duke of Kent is not the only one - The Plough in Northfields Avenue, The Forester and The Star and Anchor all suffer from...

We booked into the Duke of Kent, as we’re locals and live just on the next lane. We’ve always had good food, so we were really looking forward to our Sunday lunch. Firstly, no one even came to give us the menus for about 10-15 minutes. We called someone’s attention, and got the menus. Again, after a while - we had to call someone to come and take our orders. We patiently waited for our food to arrive - along with my 82 year old mother in law, who suffers from dementia and 2 kids aged 8 and 6… When it had been 45 minutes and no sign of our food, my husband went to check on it. We were about 4 tables booked, and 1 by 1, all of them went to complain as well. Our food finally arrived after about an hour. Then midway through the meal, a lady came to ask if all was ok, to which we replied YES, because we didn’t want to keep complaining. But the other 2 tables complained about the delay. Very soon, a supervisor arrived and spoke to them. After they complained all over again - both the tables of 4 and 5 guests respectively were offered the full meal, as a complimentary meal. I work for a well known restaurant group, and this is not how I expect to be treated. By the end of the meal, my mother in law was so irritated as she had been there for such a long time, and the kids were also not happy with the delay. By the time the food arrived, they said they’d lost their appetite. Their chips were soggy and my beef was also quite hard to chew. So, this made me a bit frustrated and so I also requested to speak to a manager. I already told my husband that if he offers us a free meal, we would say NO. I would just like some sort of apology and a reason for the delay. The same supervisor came and spoke to us and apologised and didn’t offer anything complimentary, not even drinks. I wasn’t looking for a free meal, but why be partial to some guests and not to others? This experience has marred my loyalty to this pub. I don’t think we will...

The interior decor is nice, garden is huge, food is not so good here, I have been let down a few times before especially with the Sunday Roast, they gave me potatoes that clearly had not been roasted. Place needs to be "tidied up". Had a burger there last night which came with chips and we ordered a side of onion rings. Burger was dry, a little over cooked for my liking and rather tasteless, the meat hadn't been seasoned well enough and quite clearly was lacking a little "something else" perhaps some worcestershire sauce or maybe a little onion, some salt and pepper perhaps, or even a tiny bit of ketchup into the mimce meat mix chips as usual in these places are way too big and never cooked equally through I don't know why people still believe in serving these huge chips. Onion rings, well let's just say that a portion of onion rings in this place is just the same as getting a main meal, the batter is hard and not crispy and huge, the onion can't even be noticed within it. Food was brought over by a typical summer looking student that's only there to fill in time whilst university is closed. I asked her if she could bring some ketchup, this was beyond her and she pointed out to where the cutlery and condiments were, she had to walk back upstairs, she could have gone and gotten this for me, it's general part of service, they were not just if they were then it's understandable. Let me now move onto the over sized garden that is very poorly lit and looks like a shambles, don't know who designed it, but I reckon a 5 year old with a crayon could have done better, different seats everyehwre, little booths on either side, it's a shambles. I defy will not be eating here again, would have rather I'd went to McDonalds for a burger, at least you know what you are going to get to...