The Harwood Arms — Restaurant in London

A gastro pub with a Michelin star. It's serves lovely British food. No dress code.

We had a birthday to celebrate and they had prepared a pretty card and a plate at the end with Happy birthday written in chocolate and some strawberries and ice cream. It was much appreciated.

Saw many reviews raving about many of the snacks. We ordered the scotch egg, crisps and cod roe and beef tongue on bone marrow toast. They were all very nice but nothing mind-blowing as some people make out. The venison scotch egg was perfectly made with a runny yolk inside. The potato crisps were hand made and the cod roe was like a taramasalata dip with precisely cut cubes of raw salmon on top. Don't be scared to try the beef tongue. It's not overtly tongue like and was ok.

The starters didn't appear to be as interesting, but one of us got the chilled soup of white asparagus with toasted crumpet and Cornish crab, which was great. You'll also get complimentary fresh bread, think it was a sofa bread, and whipped butter, which you can ask for more of which we did to finish off the cod's roe and the crab butter. Don't overdo it though as the mains are pretty large.

They serve different varieties of Sunday roast on a Sunday- deer, pork, fish and beef (with a £7.50 supplement). They are to be shared between 2 and are served with massive Yorkshire puddings (the ones with the beef also had some meat inside), roast potatoes, baked carrots, cauliflower cheese and tender stem broccoli. They each have their own sauce to accompany the meat/fish, the pork also had an apple sauce and the deer and beef came with horseradish too. They were all good, but put to a vote the deer and the beef came out on top. We couldn't finish everything and asked if we could takeaway the leftovers, which thankfully was possible. So, nothing went to waste.

Sadly the popular doughnuts were not on when we visited. So, we missed out on the supposedly outstanding lemon curd doughnuts, which we'd have been pleased to order otherwise. We tried the duck egg custard flan since other people had mentioned the custard tart. This was not a tart but a flan, so different, but still pleasant. It was accompanied by an apricot jam and gelato. Opinions were a bit mixed on the apricots. The other dessert we shared was the pear and almond tartlet, which came with Peel Las cheese (a blue veiny cheese), stem ginger and black pepper. The tartlet was served warm and we liked it.

There is a set menu price for the daily and Sunday menus. 2 courses were £64 and 3 courses £79 for both. The roasts were so generous most people were too full for dessert and as they hadn't ordered starters we checked if it was ok for them to just order 1 course. That is allowed even if they don't print the price for 1 course on the menus, so don't panic. A main course is priced at £45.

Service was ok on the day and they were easy to contact and responsive prior to our visit. The discretionary service charge is set at 8%, which is pretty reasonable, especially compared to most London restaurants these days.

It was pretty busy on a Sunday in early June, but not completely booked out. We were able to get availability for our group about 2 weeks beforehand by contacting the restaurant directly.

Our total for 8 people was £555.12 for 9 items. This included 3 cocktails.

Outside the remit of the restaurant but in case you're wondering about parking- restrictions operate 7 days a week and you can only park for a maximum of 2hours. There's no machines to pay so you have to ring or use the app and even if you move to another nearby road you can't extend and pay for more time. So be mindful of that because parking inspectors do make the rounds checking, even on a Sunday.

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My wife and I were disappointed with our dinner at the Harwood Arms. That said, I don't think there was a single mistake in the food design or preparation; it was just not to our taste. First the hostess helped us select a wine. The wines are rather expensive for us, and I was hesitating between a Bordeaux and a Cahors. She helpfully recommended a less expensive Corbiers, which was perfectly acceptable. My first course was a rabbit lasagna, which consisted of a round cake served in a bowl surrounded by a mousse. I first tasted the mousse, which was light and delicious, perhaps with a hint of lemon. Then my fork encountered something in the mousse that tasted shockingly unpleasant; it turned out to be an anchovy fillet. Now some people love anchovies; I don't, though I often use paste or fish sauce to add depth and dimension to dishes. I then tasted the lasagna; the texture was lumpy and sightly spongy, the flavor a bit pickly and acidic. I don't know what was in it besides rabbit and pasta, but unfortunately it was not something that complemented (for us) the promising mousse. There was also a bit of shredded cabbage in a horseradish dressing--again on the sour end of the spectrum. My wife had a terrine made with Iberian ham and trotter--also lumpy in texture, a bit acidic, and not (for us) enjoyable. Next I has venison, which was my primary reason for selecting this restaurant. All my life I've read about delicious venison in English novels, but I've never liked the venison at home in the USA. This was Muntjac, and perfectly cooked. Slightly pink in the middle, it was dense but not tough, tasting at first like steak and then like liver. There was also a cake made of organ meats with marrow, in a small amount of wonderful rich sauce. But the flavor was marred by a pretty but incongruous tasting grilled onion. There were also some hen of the woods mushrooms around the edge of the plate that could have been a great complement to the meat. Unfortunately they were so acidic or pickled that no mushroom taste could be discerned. There was a small pitcher of jus, probably a reduction of venison stock, and some garlic roasted potatoes. The potatoes were small and bulbous, which gave then more surface ares to be perfectly browned, with only a hint of garlic. I would have preferred them to be cooked a bit softer, but that's not a fault. I was going to ask for salt when I noticed a salt cellar with Maldon or something similar (I appreciate it when a restaurant does not assume that their food is already seasoned to everyone's taste). I ate some potatoes with jus, but for all of the careful preparation they weren't that enjoyable. The whole dish just didn't come together. My wife had skate with meuniere sauce. The fish was cooked correctly, but she though it lacked taste, and the sauce was too harsh for her. Finally I had a rhubarb trifle, just to see what an English trifle could be. It consisted of several different textures and gradations of rhubarb, including jelly, gelato, and something that resembled roe, with a delicate glazed "brioche" and a thick, rich cream, very carefully constructed. But after the acidity of the previous courses this was a poor choice on my part. I am beginning to sense that the English palate favors acidic, pickly and sharp tastes that to us detract from what might otherwise be enjoyable dishes. Certainly this chef favors such a palate--the whole meal could be thought of as variations on that theme. The staff were very nice, and realizing that we had not enjoyed our meal deleted the cost of the wine from our bill. In summary, for people like us for whom harmonious taste is more important than presentation or startling contrasts of favor, I would not recommend...

This was our first time at the Harwood Arms and I had been trying to get a reservation for months with no success. On arrival there were plenty of empty tables so not sure why is so difficult to get in! The waiter took us over to our table and while we stood there another lady was cleaning it as the table next to it, had dropped a glass of red wine all over our table and the floor. I looked at the waiter and politely asked if we could sit at the other table next to it as this was empty and he just replied No! I found this response very rude. We eventually sat down at our table and they brought the menus - service was very slow and we had to call them over to order our drinks. We finally got our drinks and my husband was wearing a cream shirt and when he leaned into the table because the red white was not cleared up properly he got red white all on this shirt. This evening was not going to plan at all! I got up and went over to the manger to complain and explained all the details of the event and I did not want the customers next to me to know what had happened as they were having an anniversary meal and did not want the lady to feel bad about it all. The manager apologised what had happened and agreed we should of been put on another table while they cleaned this red wine up when we arrived, I sat back down and the manager came over to my husband, spoke loudly so the lady heard every thing and handed him his business card and told me that if I could get the red wine out then he would pay for the dry cleaning. The couple next to us heard every thing and she was extremely uncomfortable to the fact she left her husband in the pub to pay the bill and left. I have taken pictures of the meal and in my option the food is average, overpriced and not meeting Michelin standards anymore. The starter was heavy and this is not a pate but more like a kind of pork pie. The pub is run down, shabby, the service is terrible and the meal is all over priced. We were not even offered any thing as compensation for the shirt which was expensive and i had to soak it in cold water for days and buy stain products to get it all out. He should of at least took my husband drink off the bill. The manger should of taken our details and treated us better in the pub and call us to see if I managed to get the stains out of this shirt. This should of been handled a lot better by the manager. I am shocked this pub has a Michelin star as there are better pubs out there in London This was my first experience of this pub and...