The Duke — Restaurant in London

It was average - but certainly room to be a 4 or 5.

Our first visit to The Duke snd whilst I work in E11 and lived in the area for 18 years, I thought it was a good chance to try somewhere different. The nearest pub of any competition is The Bell, but far enough not to be direct competition and different style of pub / business and food offering.

From the outside, it looks the part & as the areas has changed - it fits in well with the demographic. Didn’t check out the garden, a little too cold.

Walk into the pub - some may call it a bar. It ticked the boxes - lighting at a good level (ambient) it was certainly clean, good lay out. To be honest - 4/5 stars for the whole place. The staff were friendly and a good selection of if beers / draught bottles & spirits...

So why only “average” and 3 stars? Simply two reasons - which both can be easily fixed. Music & food.

Music - one minute it was at a level that was just right for a pub with about 15 - 20 people on a cold Thursday night at 7pm - next minute it is cranked up so you can’t hear each other talk. On the music, something really didn’t click - it wasn’t Valentines Day was it - I’m a bit “old skool” Keith Sweat’s “Twisted” was playing when we walked in, great track - but I realised 4 or 5 tracks in - it was a night or R&B love ballads! All 4 One’s “I Swear” Do the staff get free reign of the music or was this death by Spotify? Easily fixed guys... but certainly not what I was expecting.

The clincher, this is what sealed the “3 star review” The Food.

We bought 6 buffalo wings w Blue Cheese Sauce - ✅ recommenced and good size portion.

Chicken Box & 2 sides (slaw & fries). Wife was happy with ✅ - we did order blue cheese fries, but the fries were... plain? Simple mistake.

Mac & Chreese 🤔 - it looked the part, for £5 a reasonable portion. Hot & sizzling, the cheese placed under the grill & browned to perfection. Unfortunately absolutely NO flavour, really, really bland - certainly needs ramping up with a stronger cheese. But pretty disappointing - how can you go wrong with Mac & Cheese?

McBrew Burger - The beef patties looked “bought in” I may be wrong snd crrtsinly lacked flavour . If not bought in, then they too could do with ramping up - try using course ground mince, add some ground beef fat to the mix for flavour and don’t press them so tightly (only my opinion) tasted shop bought and looked it - I say this in the way they looked to have shrunk & curled like shop bought burgers do. It was dry and I was told by the young lady behind the bar that they were home made. None the less, it was an average burger and 3 is all it gets.

All easily fixed...

Nothing worse than a review that’s not positive, but hope you see this as constructive review. A great looking pub inside & out, certainly fits in with the area and very relaxing inside.

Oh, your menus - why are the prices on your weekly menu different to those on the Sunday menu. I did ask for the dessert menu - identical items on both menus, different prices...

Would we come back, certainly. But as we now live in SE18, it looks like we will be trying out The Star. it will be interesting to see what you do with that. Not sure about the blue, but we will see - Plumstead People on Facebook are already opinionated on it. 🤣

Good luck with The Star / The Duke -...

We had a small team meal here, the food was pricey but nice - the review is not about the food!

A note of caution: If you order off of the menu and ask to switch anything to chips, an additional £1 was payable - a couple of our meals came with fries, so had asked for chips rather than fries or potato and veg!! A portion of said chips was £4:50 (ISH!).

The poor review is solely due to the appalling customer service received at the end of our meal.

Upon asking for the bill, a man approaches the table with a card reader - fine. I asked to pay for my meal and all of the drinks for the team .. this resulted in a harsh response whipping away the bill and being told, of if you wish to split it you need to come to the bar - again fine, but the attitude / tone was not welcomed.

On standing at the bar the looks and tone of voice increased and were shocking, we were obviously a huge inconvenience to the man serving us, adding to his frustration was his assistant that didn't know how to use the till.

As the party made payments the tone and behaviour contained to worsen.

On paying the bill, one person asked for a receipt as they had noticed a price variation to the menu, to be told in addition to the extra £1 per meal charge for chips... There was a service charge.

The payee asked where a service charge was published to be told it is on the menu, we all checked and it was not, I showed the woman (as the man was taking payments!) the menu and there was no mention of a charge and she just shrugged it saying it's on there...pointing at an allergy clause. This was followed by the male aggressively telling the payee it's on the till system and to be expected to be charged for service, it's assumed.

I asked the very rude and now quite aggressive man for the full bill, to be given a copy of my card till receipt. So again we had no information on what was being charged and why - the point being to see what service charge was and how much was being applied , plus the fact that we didn't want to pay it - the service was not worthy!

Trying to not make a scene and completely ruin what had been our first team meal in 18 months, we reluctantly accepted the behaviour, the charges and left the premises; with no attitude or fuss from the customer side of the bar.

We will go there again,...

It was really nice going here during the week, very peaceful and chill. It has a lovely atmosphere. The staff are generally lovely, I wanted to say a massive thanks to Joseph and Alana (who’s first day it was I beleive). Alana was incredibly welcoming, especially considering COVID, and told us what we needed to do for the track and trace and ordering etc very politely without talking down to us at all. She was incredibly friendly, AMAZING customer service skills and I seriously hope she goes far in life (considering what a lovely woman she was, I’m sure she will!). Unfortunately this comfort was slightly ruined by one of the women working there who seemed to be their superior. My friend was upset and tired and was just resting her head on the table, only for this woman to come up to us and say “you can’t be doing that”, really embarrassing her and making her cry. It really angered me, especially considering my friend is such a lovely girl and was literally resting her head on the table. Is this boarding school? Fair enough if she was sprawled out on the table doing an irish dance but she literally was not. She really upset my friend and that’s not okay. We weren’t rowdy at all, just there to have a pint and a catch up, and yet this woman kept eyeing us up all night making us very uncomfortable. I hope she changes this soon as it did actually put me off. Luckily Joseph and Alana were so welcoming and hospitable that it did help balance this review a bit. Joseph let us know we could stay and Alana was so friendly, especially considering it was her first day. Overall, a nice pub with good staff but as usual it seems management could do with a bit of sorting out...