The Eagle Farringdon — Restaurant in London

I have been there several times, I generally enjoy, although the place is worse every time I go: The Steak sandwich: We ordered 4 in the table, I was quite unlucky compared to the others, I could only eat 50% of the meat in the sandwich(literally), not even the saw knife could cut through, I really tried, and even put the pieces in my mouth without cutting them, but they always go back to the plate in a meatball shape, totally impossible to chew or swallow, all my friends tried mine and had the same experience, so basically We tried booking a table for 5 in two different days: I was told they do not take bookings for small groups, both days I had to wait for 45 minutes while 2 tables were empty with a reserved sign, the tables were for groups of 4. The bartender takes the piss: 5 minutes at the bar to order while the bartenders were just chatting right and laughing in front of me, when the bartender finally started serving me he would just stop serving and start chatting again, joking here and there, laughing, which is totally fine, but dude... it literally took me 10 minutes to get my order while the bar was empty. It is the loudest pub I have been to: your throat will be totally destroyed after being there for one hour as you can only communicate...

PREGNANT We went for dinner with my pregnant daughter and our family to celebrate her birthday. We asked for the Onglet steak to be well cooked for her. The nice man serving said he had to ask the chef . The chef said no - he didn’t speak to us he sent a message that this wasn’t how you cook Onglet. We were told it compromises the dish- to be clear we weren’t asking for everyone in the pub to have well cooked steak that night. And yes women do have to make compromises on what they eat during pregnancy so it wasn’t ideal for her but a tiny adjustment that could be made. So she settled for the Dahl and then we asked if she could have some of the boiled potatoes usually served with the steak. That was a no. It was too late to leave and try and find somewhere that could take 6 people On a Friday- it was a pity as the food that we had was of course very good When I called and spoke to Ed the head of kitchen he listened and said Marco the chef was a nice guy and that they couldn’t make too many variations to dishes in one evening - again we hadn’t asked for any additional ingredients or variations, on the potatoes he wondered if perhaps they had only had enough for their set dishes … it all felt an unnecessary position to take. It spoiled...

Victims of their own success. I've eaten here 3 times and today will sadly be the last. The food is tasty but this place is too crowded and I don't think it represents value for money any longer. We've always known to expect with the Eagle that it isn't table service and that's ok but the service here now really is not good enough. You can only reserve if you have a large group which means that it is a scramble for seats and some of the high level tables are sub optimal. They only had one waitress today and as a result people were sat at dirty tables that were not cleared until their food arrived and the condiments and bread were not brought until half way through eating. Long queues at the bar to order. No water brought to the table. Dirty toilets. Dishes arrived at vastly different times with no prior warning. The two cooks were simply overwhelmed with orders and the dishes felt rushed. My hake arrived undercooked and had to be remade. The free olives whilst I waited were appreciated but it wasn't enough to make up for an overall disappointing experience. It's such a shame. I hope that the owners focus on improving the service and overall experience, maybe remove some tables, and I would be happy to...