The Hansom — Restaurant in London

We had a really bad experience at the Hansom restaurant today. We went to celebrate my mum's 70th birthday and had booked afternoon tea. We were 4 adults and 2 small children so made a reservation for 6. My husband is diabetic so can't have cakes. When we arrived we were told by the front of house lady that we HAD to order 4 afternoon teas because the reservation was made for 4 adults and the tea was preordered the day before. It felt very condesending and we felt talked down to. If that indeed is the policy, it was not made clear in the reservation and I was made to believe I was in the wrong and trying to weasel out of an agreement. Now we've been to afternoon tea at plenty of different hotels including the Ritz and Dorchester and have never been told that. It felt really embarrassing and not at all pleasant. This staff member handled this situation extremely poorly. I wanted to leave at that point and was thorougly embarrased for my mum who we wanted to have a good time for her birthday. The front of house person was rude and very aggressive when she told us that and stormed off to talk to her manager only to come back to tell us that they were OK to let us order 2 afternoon teas and 2 courses of their normal menu for the other party which we agreed to but it did really dampen the mood and from then on it was just a sh@tshow. It took them probably 45 minutes from arriving to take our order. We finally received 2 plates of sandwiches and food for the children. We had ordered chicken and ice cream. They brought the chicken and left the ice cream sitting out until the kids were finished with their main course so the ice cream was liquid. The main courses arrived,but no cakes. The steak was also over peppered unfortunately. We spilled water but no one cleaned it up or offered a new napkin. Plates weren't cleared, we had to call waiters over to ask for small plates to eat the sandwiches from. 2 hours in there still wasn't any sight of any scones or cakes. By that point my kids were super tired and fed up and frankly we just wanted to go home. I complained to the same lady (front of house) and got told it was standard practice to leave a decent amount of time between courses. I don't think 2 hours is reasonable to wait for scones and cakes! This certainly did not happen the last time I went here for afternoon tea. I told her that we actually just wanted to go home and nobody was in the mood for cakes anymore, that we really weren't happy and frankly super disappointed with the service. She was snide, unapologetic and just kept saying let me check. Finally her manager came over and offered us a reduction in the bill and packaged up the cakes to go. It was a thoroughly underwhelming experience where no proper afternoon tea was had. I had let them know in the reservation that it was for a big birthday, but nothing was done for my mum to make it special. It also didn't feel particularly child friendly and welcoming to a family with 2 young children. The only saving grace was that we were all together, but the day was throughly ruined by the experience. Very very shoddy! Cannot recommend. Overpriced and...

NOPE

Right around the corner from the main London train stations, the beautiful 1800s building is a joy to look at while enjoying your meal. That is, if one gets service. After being sat for 15 minutes, we still had yet to be greeted by anyone and because we had children who needed to have food sooner rather than later, we asked if someone was able to take our order. While a waitress came over and took our order, she then disappeared and we didn’t see her for a long time. After waiting for close to an hour with hungry children (it was past 3 pm, and the people who were sat before us had ordered, eaten, paid, and left) we finally inquired of a different server as to the status of our food as we still had not seen our server nor had she checked on us. The other server was very polite and did what she could to get our food and get us anything extra. It took an additional 10+ minutes for our food but it did come. At that point we weren’t able to enjoy the food between wanting to leave and kids that had sat still far too long. Despite our wait and needing to say something multiple times to receive service, nothing was taken off our bill and we were left extremely dissatisfied with our experience and lack of any acknowledgement from staff. Wishing we had gone to Burger King instead of this 5 star hotel restaurant.

I further forgot to add that the food was disappointing due to its size and price. Being hungry, the guys in our group ordered the chicken kebab thinking it would be filling. 2 tiny skewers later and no sides, they were finishing off other peoples meals because we didn’t want to spend more money. Avocado sandwich was a piece of bread rather than an actual sandwich… Both were listed as main meals but really should have been starters...

Slow service - I would have ordered another drink but it took a while to first be seated so that was a red flag, there was no hostess for a while so I stood there as staff within the restaurant just looked at me. It wasn’t overly busy.

I ordered a drink once seated it did come quickly but after drinking - my empty cup sat on the table for a long time - I waited a while to finally get some attention so I decided to close out my order versus getting more items. I would have reordered if they came attentively or even asked / noticed.

Why I’m actually upset (I wouldn’t have even mentioned the drink issue, I let things go usually as mistakes happen in food & beverage) - I wanted to capture content with my iPhone in this historic hotel’s public space (the restaurant I was in and grand staircase. I asked prior to doing so and they said yes - concierge) then as I’m capturing the space, a security guard comes up to me and tells me and no one else I cannot film. He said I can take photos, however he didn’t stop anyone else so it felt very pointed. I am the only person of colour in this space, the restaurant was already a miss and now to be ostracized like this is the nail in the coffin.

I’m an architectural journalist visiting from Dubai and was so excited to capture just a dot of this iconic neo-gothic space. Ironically many years ago this hotel offered me an influencer stay to blog about but I couldn’t make it due to prior travel commitments.

News flash, black young men love architecture and culture too. Don’t run your biggest fans away. I was highlighting St. Pancras as one of London’s greatest urban regeneration...