The General Roy — Restaurant in London

Used to be great every time we went. Last few times we've been, several things have been unavailable and meals have taken 50+ minutes to arrive, including one occasion when we arrived a little before the doors even opened. On both of our most recent visits at least one item has been cold. Today it was the mushrooms, last time it was the chips. Someone asked for a plate without a tomato, but it was included anyway - customer could have had an allergy. Luckily, she just disliked them. Menus were sticky and obviously not wiped, which is a particular problem at the moment. We had to press for plates to be collected. Did not see one single table being wiped as people left. Make sure you sanitise your hands well. No kind of queueing system in place, people frequently barge in or are asked for their orders when others have been waiting for longer. Now often have no explanation as to food arriving late, only apologised when told one of us now had to leave without eating due to an appointment that they'd left plenty of time for. I know it gets busy, but this has been excessive. No onions today, but they did have premade onion rings which they could have offered as an alternative, but did not. But they could sell us some seperately, of course. Onions are such a basic thing for a restaurant to stock. Surely after 6+ months they still cannot be working out order volumes for the new menu. The next order after ours was also told no more tomatoes or mushrooms, and I heard at least two people failing to order the fudge cake as well. Steaks were miniscule, bright pink in the middle though we ordered well-done, and I could barely eat a mouthful of my own since it was so full of gristle etc. Generous amount of sauce, but there was so little actual food on the plate that most of it was wasted, and of course it's a seperate purchase. Portion sizes have definitely dropped recently and the menu has been greatly reduced. Their website still has the old menu though, despite replies on here saying that the switch happened 6+ months ago, so, having looked online in advance, we were looking forward to ordering things that were no longer offered. There are now only a couple of veggie options on the entire menu, only one of which is warm and both of which contain things a couple of our party could not eat. There were also not enough staff on duty. Behind the bar is almost always empty now, leaving people waiting for ages. At one point on our last visit, customers were told no more orders were being taken as they had to put away a delivery now. And yet they were still missing things when orders resumed some time later. The 50+ minute wait was post-ordering, by the way. We might have been ok had an entire family not been allowed to barge in front of us, despite not even knowing what they wanted yet. Favourites are definitely given preferential treatment. And then a family member had to send some chicken strips back because he could not get his teeth through them, they were so tough. The staff when you can actually speak to them are friendly enough and I'm sure are doing their best, but seem a bit overwhelmed quite frequently and standards have definitely slipped over the past few months. I'm sure it'll be blamed on Covid, but you just shouldn't leave a restaurant still hungry. - Especially not twice within a few weeks. As things had previously been great, we decided to give the place another chance after the first occasion, but will think twice about...

Having read (mostly) good things about this place and wanting to try somewhere new, we were really looking forward to eating here. When we walked in, I immediately felt it was a lot louder than expected and could do with a clean. There were a couple of groups of people in the pub being seriously loud as well - far louder than the music or general atmosphere!! For a Thursday evening, that was pretty unexpected.

The drinks were decent enough and the staff were perfectly friendly. They could definitely do with some more beers on tap - especially in this era of being spoilt for choice by craft beer! When ordering at the bar though and also at our tables, there were a lot of fruit flies around which is never pleasant. When we went to order our food, we were irritated to find that there was no fish (so no fish and chips which half of us were ordering) and they couldn’t use the hob (so couldn’t cook eggs for the full English breakfast). Having read a lot of reviews saying that people had had problems with certain food items not being available, I was really hoping they would have sorted this out. Sadly not, so we were really disappointed. I think my father in-law was given some extra bacon as an apology, but sadly that doesn’t much make up for not being able to eat what we were after.

Probably the most disappointing thing was when the food arrived. After reading one review about “great portions”, we were left wondering if we’d come to the wrong place. The portions were really small compared to other places like this. Granted they are cheap - and they really are cheap - but we would have much preferred to pay a couple of pounds more for a decent serving. I was pleased I’d ordered a side of cheesy chips, but even these were pretty lacking on the size!! The quality of the food really was good, so we had no complaints there, but we were just left feeling pretty hungry. As a result, we ordered a couple of big desserts. These were a pleasant surprise, as they were a really good size and again, they were really tasty.

Of course, the pub can’t do a great deal about the clientele so can’t be blamed for that, but that would unfortunately put me off going back any time soon. It’ll sound really snobby reading this, but we are not snobs in the slightest!! We just don’t tend to enjoy places where people make a point to shout as loud as they can at people standing right next to them, looking to fight with every other person who walks past. Again, not the pub’s fault, but a shame.

If they ordered more of a stock of the food that seems to be often unavailable and perhaps increased the portion sizes on certain dishes (even if that means increasing the prices slightly), we’d give it another chance some time. Sadly though, for our joint birthday celebrations, this probably was not the best place to choose!! Let’s hope for an improvement in future, and thanks to the staff for being more friendly than the other...

Really disappointed and angry about my roast dinner i just had at this place! To start with i ordered nachos and they were swimming in wat looked like the fat, u r supposed to drain from the mince, mixed with chilli sauce leaving my nachos soggy and gross. Then my beef roast came out......... frozen mushed up veg, rock solid parsnips, microwave reheated potatoes and what only can b described as grey soggy beef slices and the only thing that was at all heated was the plate itself. Always wanted to eat at the general roy and i wish i never had. Waste of money as i left your attempt at a roast dinner on the table and left before my son's ice cream b4 it was served to us as i didnt wanna see how wrong the chefs attempt at that would have been. Honestly no recommendation will b coming from me to anybody and i would only advise anybody thinking about goin there to look else where. I would seriously consider changin ur kitchen staff as they have managed to destroy what should have been a simply cooked roast. The 1 star rating is still grading my experience too high bt unfortunately zero wasnt a option. I left knowing i would never be returning bt i did have one amusing moment as i rushed out the door..... advertising for bookings for christmas roast dinner. I think ill b stayin at home, as a chef myself i invite ur kitchen staff to my house to show them how it should be done. Very...