The Happenstance — Restaurant in London

We went for a new team member lunch yesterday at the The Happenstance. Monday the 18th July 2022.

Beautiful location, we arrived around 12.40pm and were welcomed and seated outside. It was a hot day but in the shade, was nice with a gentle breeze. It didn’t seem overly busy inside or out. We ordered drinks and chatted amongst ourselves, our waitress was really nice and answered all our queries regarding the menu.

So we ordered our mains, as she was leaving to take the ticket to the kitchen, we added some extra starters. A little backwards how we ordered but didn’t think it would cause any issues. We were served our drinks and chatted amongst ourselves making small talk with our new team member.

Time passed and must have been quite a while as someone remarked they certainly make you wait for your food. It did feel quite a long time. Anyway it arrived, well 4 of our 5 dishes turned up. We all sat there waiting for the fifth to turn up. Our boss told us to start as it had been 10 minutes and she was worried our food would go cold. Just as well as we finished before her risotto turned up, with our starters.

Once finished we requested the bill and my boss promptly paid without any form of complaint or even feeding back on our experience. I presume the maitre d' was aware her meal hadn’t arrived inline with ours. As my boss asked her politely when her food would arrive.

Ultimately I think we were all pretty shocked there was no apology of any sort. They all seemed to have enjoyed their meals, my steak was a little disappointing if I’m honest. Cooked well but seemed quite tough for a medium rare. The salt and pepper squid was seriously over seasoned but beautifully tender. The Risotto, Chicken Kiev and Curry were well received by my peers with no complaints.

Personally don’t think I would go there outside of a works meal or function. I can accept it was the hottest day of the year, there may have been staff shortages etc.

But simple communication or courtesy really doesn’t...

What a disappointment. We booked this place for a birthday lunch on a sunny Sunday and all 7 of us left disappointed. On arrival we had to wait for someone at the door who quickly sat us on a table of 6 with a chair squeezes into the top right of the table, which we had to moved out of the plants in order to be used. After 20 min of no one coming to the table to offer drinks or welcome us, we entered the place to call someone to attend our table. We ordered and once again after 15 min nothing happened so we entered the place and picked up the drinks ourselves. No one came for the order, so we called an Asian lady and told her he had kids on the table if they could bring their food asap as their were hungry. Another 50 min passed and we still had no signs of the food, we asked 3 times and the staff said our table was next. We decided to order more drinks, no one was around despite all tables being occupied and looking for staff. We entered the place again to ask for drinks . Drinks order was incorrect but by then we just had what they brought. The food arrived all separately and the dishes destined to the kids were the very last. We arrived at 1:30 and got the mains by 2:50! The food was cold and extremely overcooked. One of the dishes, chicken Kiev was so hard that we couldn’t even cut . We sent it back and it took another 20 min for the chef to send exactly the same condition Kiev. It was horrible, all dishes were cold , tables around were left dirty forever, staff was very indifferent (not rude, just completely careless). We were expecting some kind of note of the birthday mentioned on the reservation, even a happy birthday from the waitress, but no we not only had the worse experience at this place but kids left the restaurant and we had to go to McDonald’s actors the block. Sunday bells were lovely and the location is great. Such a shame the service and food are so bad ! They need a...

I visit a few Drake and Morgan's around London and by comparison this was by far the worse, hence the 1 star.

We arrived for food on a Saturday evening. We didn't have a reservation and had to wait some time before someone seated us. The service was slow all evening. Some ingredients weren't available in the kitchen so our orders were taken with a tweak (mainly no parmesan for our Roman Fries, but everything else was in the kitchen). When our food arrived, the fries we ordered were not the fries we received and when we checked this with the waiter, they insisted this was the correct dish - according to the menu, Roman Fries are made with truffle and rosemary but we received some fries covered in (I think) olive oil and some other cheese, but there was no truffle or rosemary although I was told the oil was truffle. When I asked for the dish to be replaced, the same sort of dish came out again but with more oil on the side.

I know this seems like a small thing but I was more disappointed with the overall lack of service and this just made it worse. I don't mind if something isn't available (that is to be expected), but if I order a dish then I expect to receive it as stated in the menu or otherwise agreed with the wait staff. If that dish isn't available, I should be given the option of having something else or not having it all - not being told it is what I ordered when it clearly isn't. The staff either didn't know what the dish actually was or were indifferent but I was more irritated by the principle that I didn't receive what I ordered and when I asked that this was corrected, it wasn't...