The Hoxton Hound — Restaurant in London

The restaurant that this has replaced, the Beagle, used to have very good food but poor service. Now, two things have changed: the food is no more good, and the service is abysmally bad.

I arrived on Sunday at 11:30. Before asking for a table I asked whether they would be serving out of the breakfast or the lunch menu. The waiters didn’t even know that, and had to go to the kitchen to check - that should have been already a red flag, but I made the mistake of staying. I got seated on the terrace with my 2 years old and we were the only customers. I ordered a cappuccino and a babycino (making clear to the waitress that a babycino is just a cappuccino WITHOUT coffee since it’s meant for babies). 10-15 minutes later (remember, I was the only customer when I arrived) my (decent) cappuccino arrives while the “babycino” turns out to be an espresso with some milk (despite my careful explanation). I point out to our waitress (medium height, strong built) that I had asked for a cappuccino without coffee (ie babycino). Our waitress apologises and goes back to have it changed. Another 10 minutes after (I should have given up by them) she shows up with a tiny espresso cup with some milk in it. I smile, accept the drink, but politely ask to bring me as an additional order (ie I was willing to pay for one more) a CAPPUCCINO WITHOUT COFFEE (babies happen to drink milk in quantities a bit above the size of an espresso cup). I also order food for me and the baby and ask for a Bloody Mary to be served with my food and some water for the table. Eventually, the food order arrives, but no Bloody Mary nor water ever reached our table. After a while I start trying to attract the attention of the waiters inside to get at least some water, but no luck - they are well trained to ignore their customers on the terrace (and even if they notice, like the red haired waitress, decide consciously to ignore you). Eventually, my meal is over and still no drinks on the table. When my waitress finally shows up (it took a lot of waiving my arms through the window, to the point that my baby started doing the same), I ask politely for the check and to remove the Bloody Mary from my bill since it never came (the waitress apologises, acknowledging her mistake, and tells me she thought we wanted the drinks AFTER the food... ). I tell her never mind, just please bring the bill so that I can finally go (I had already been there well above one hour). After this, our waitress literally vanishes for good. After another 15 minutes and useless attempts of attracting the attention of the staff, I give up and go to pay inside. By then, I had spent 90 minutes there. I ask to pay to the waitress working at the cashier (a red haired staff member, maybe the “manager”). I ask her to remove the cocktail from my bill and she angrily replies “there is no cocktail since you never asked for one, it was your mistake” (note that my waitress had instead at least acknowledged her mistake before). By then, my patience is over and I ask to make sure that there is no service charge on my bill. In reply I get a nasty look and a “you are rude, we are very busy” - I look around in disbelief since only 3 tables had customers. I pay, and leave sure I’ll never be back.

Note that during my long waiting there I’ve witnessed: customers having to go inside since they had given up on waiters 1) bringing the menus, 2) coming to take the orders, and 3) bringing the bill. I was even delivered the food ordered by another table, and I’ve seen my waitress giving two menus that were glued to each other by filth (the waitress separated them noticing the filth, but decided to give them to the customers nevertheless - in response the customers, wisely, decided not to order food).

Now the food. Not as bad as the service (that would require a food poisoning tbh), but my full breakfast included: cold breakfast beans, overcooked eggs but undercooked bacon, soggy fried potatoes (3), one Tesco sausage = cheap pub chain food.

Baseline: avoid at all costs - I can only imagine what goes on in...

We've been to a few Brewhouse & Kitchen around the country and our trip to Hoxton for a Brewery Experience lived up to the high standards of the group.  We'd not been to a London Brewhouse pub, chosen as it sat in the best location for our group from different parts of the country.  So booked with some trepidation for a significant experience.  What if the brewer wasn't engaging? What if the venue was unmaintained? What if the food was rubbish? What if the clientele let the side down?

What we're we worrying about?  Needless and pointless it transpired!  Alessandro our local master brewer, who brews all but one of the beers on tap engaged us from the off and looked after us from 10:00 a.m until 4:00 pm.  An unenviable task as we were supplied with beer all that time with the inevitable consequences.   He took us through the brewing process, engaged each of our small party in tasks to make the beer, explained the background and a wide beer and brewing knowledge.

The venue was lovely, clean and cosy (although a little more attention to replacing the many empty sauce bottles needed). The clientele on a murky May Saturday afternoon, welcoming and accepting of the 4 folk that had been on the beer since mid morning.

And the beer.  Its why we came and encouraged our B&K first timer friends to join with us.  Its clean, its tasty, its brewed local.  It also rates highly with me as this attention to the beer personally seem to me mean no nasty hangover the next day.

(any masks in photos are dust masks for the...

Went in for the Monday burger and pint deal for £10.95. The app didn’t have anywhere for us to order and get the deal so we had to order at the bar. Staff seemed rather disgruntled that we were trying to make use of the deal. FYI the deal only includes burgers and soda, when we tried to get a pint of cider, we were told that wasn’t allowed even though it wasn’t specified what the pint had to be. It’s also not clear which burgers count for the deal. The staff seemed unhappy about it but did recommend a lighter beer. A 12,5% service charge is added to the bill as well. We didn’t want to go through the hassle of going to the bar to order more food since it wasn’t the best experience the first time so we ordered more on the app. We got our burgers and they were absolutely delicious! Highly recommend. After a while we realized we still hadn’t gotten our other food and we brought it up to staff. It turns out that there was an issue in their system but the kitchen had closed already. They were very quick to refund our order!

Overall, the food was great, the app/system seems to have issues, the specifics of deals should be more clearly advertised and you should be able to order the deal on the app, and the staff was responsive...