The Garden Gate — Restaurant in London

Lovely pub in a beautiful spot, but the Sunday service left a lot to be desired. We (three of us) arrived for our booking at 2pm and ordered food at 2:30. Soon after we ordered, someone brought our cutlery and advised "your food will be with you soon". Almost 40 minutes later, no food - so we queried this with another member of staff who advised that the wait for food was over an hour, which we weren't told when we ordered. Two of three meals ended up arriving at 4:30 - the third meal ordered was a salad, which didn't arrive with the other two meals. Ten minutes passed, and still no salad, so we grabbed another member of staff who said they were "just adding the chicken to it". Another ten minutes passed, and still no salad. A different member of staff came over to our table, apologising for the delay, and advised it would be another ten/fifteen minutes as they still had "some prep" to do, and offered my partner a dessert to apologise. Another fifteen minutes passed and the salad still hadn't arrived, so my partner asked for a refund on it and we left. On the food that did arrive: the chicken and nut roast were both decent and tasted really fresh, but the vegetables had definitely been sitting around since morning prep and the Yorkshire puddings were rock hard. The staff were lovely, and maybe the food would be better on a quieter/better organised day - but sadly we won't be back...

Went there for a drink after work on a Saturday. Website says they close at midnight, bell was rang for last orders at 11.30. It was really busy, fair enough. Went up to get a drink at 11.45pm when the initial queue had gone and was told they were “closed” but again, the website says they close at midnight so that’s a bit bizarre that they stop serving before they actually close. Then at midnight on the dot we were rounded up and told to leave because they were closed. When another customer highlighted that she had just bought a drink and was legally allowed “drinking up time” after they close, at midnight, the staff on duty became quite aggressive and around 3 of them surrounded her and were shouting at her for “being rude” when in reality she was absolutely correct, 100%. I appreciate days are long and hard, especially when it’s hot outside as it was that day but if you’re advertising being open until midnight and by the terms of your license, should allow people time to finish the drink bought at last orders, you should continue serving until midnight and then give people time to finish drinks instead of rushing them out the door as soon as the clock strikes midnight. Or even, you know, just change the opening times on the website/Google if you hate...

Plenty of nonsense reviews to choose from which you can pick through at your peril.

In the flesh this place was a pain. There are various doors around the perimeter that you can’t use due to being directed towards the garden entrance. When you get there it’s the whole ridiculous thing of wiring and waiting to be allocated a table.

In life you want to be able to walk into a pub go to the bar and have a beer at your own pace without any problem. To be treated like a child and not have freedom in a public house is ludicrous, especially with the prices they charge.

There are plenty of decent pubs in the area and this isn’t one of them.

Edit follow reply: They’re clearly operating as a restaurant if you can’t walk in for a drink and need to book and they need to be transparent about this. Just call yourselves a restaurant!

Common on google are weird reviews from people with one review who give no detail of their visit and say something like Matilda have great service and that is all. The Garden Gate is guilty as charged in this front. Be careful what you read. Becky and Ella had a good run of non detailed reviews about a month ago and their names have barely been mentioned since. Not...