The Laundry - Restaurant Brixton — Restaurant in London

Since I posted the below, the Laundry has been in contact with a full and genuine apology, an offer of a refund, and a personal apology from the owner. This makes a difference- we will return and give Laundry another chance. Also increased my original star rating to 3 from 2, because of the email; really impressed by it.

My husband and I arrived at about 7:45pm yesterday evening, and asked for a table for two. We were told to wait and have a quick drink whilst a table was found for us. There was a small table on the ground floor which looked fine to us but we were told was too small (so what was the point of it being there..?!). We were fine to wait anyway, and it turned out it was only for a minute or two before we were led downstairs to a table they had found. The problems started now- we were tucked on the end of a long thin table in a narrow private area that a loud, birthday-celebrating table of about 10 people had already booked. No music, very loud table next to us, no atmosphere, and no ‘is this ok?’ from any staff member, despite it being clearly not ok and a completely random place to stick a couple who wanted a quiet dinner. I’m quite obviously pregnant so this decision of your staff confused us even more, as the area was so narrow it was a real squeeze for me.

We then ordered our drinks which came quickly. We then ordered dinner, and asked a few questions about the menu which weren’t answered particularly knowledgeably or satisfactorily:

Us: ‘are the dishes to share, or would you recommend we order one each?’ Laundry; ‘up to you’. Us, ‘ok... well are they pretty big or pretty small dishes?’ Laundry: ‘depends on how hungry you are’.

Helpful!

So we ordered a starter each and a main each. The starters came very very quickly, and less than 10 minutes later, when I had literally just out my fork down and hadn’t even finished chewing- my main came out. The starters hadn’t even been cleared away. And just my main came, not my husbands. And we had no cutlery as that had just been taken away with our starter plates. So we shared my main (which was tiny, so I wish we had been told when we asked, that it was a small plate, then we could have ordered more) to avoid it going cold whilst Rob waited for his food. Then Rob’s food came. The food was delicious, and presented beautifully. But at this point we were pretty much laughing at the service; our waitress came over, noticed we’d finished our drinks and asked Rob (not me!), if he would like another one..took his order and walked off before I could say I would also like a drink. We were then asked if we wanted a dessert menu to which we agreed, and only Rob was handed one, not me. Random. Throughout the meal, food wasn’t placed gently in front of us, it was dumped quickly on the side of the table, so we had to pick up hot plates and put it in front of ourselves. Cutlery was replaced, but not placed in front of us, just put on the table near us. We saw this happen with other tables too, and other guests question why. It wasn’t even busy downstairs, how can service like this be excused?

Normally I would have said something throughout the meal about service, so that when it came to bill paying, us not paying service wouldn’t come as a horrible surprise to our waitress. But I sensed a lack of care or interest would have greeted me saying anything, so we didn’t bother and we just paid the full bill. Because I am pregnant, we go out so rarely now, so this was such a shame we had this experience. We’ve been to Laundry for breakfast before once, and it was gorgeous. So it makes last night even more...

We made sure to book indoor so that it was not cold and to ensure the food does not get cold. The indoor dining had very small tables and was extremely cold. The staff constantly left the front door open, allowing the cold air to go into the restaurant. We asked if we could move downstairs but we're told no. We asked if the front door could be not left open constantly. The staff said they would ensure that they would close the door behind them but they did not. They would go in and out and leave the door open constantly. We then noticed that the majority of the other customers had big blankets to keep warm. So then we asked the staff for a blanket and we were met with rudeness and justment, the staff literally said, 'what, you want it inside!?'.

When the food came, I was given only 1 slice of beef and my friend got 2 slices. This was most definitely not enough. We ordered more beef seperatly. The staff said it would be the same portion size but we got 4 slices. Clearly there is no quality control. We had to pay another 10 pound because of the tiny amount of meat that was initially provided.

The sides were very nice and cooked well.

It's dissappointed that the yorkishire pudding had to be paid for when it probably the cheapest thing to make.

Lastly we ordered the sticky toffee pudding and asked for the ice cream on the side. The dessert came with the ice cream on top, not on the side.

The bill contained a 4 pound donation and a 12.5% service charge. We, of course, paid this. But honestly, the total bill came out a lot more that it should have as the staff were not very helpful, portion sizes were not great, we had to order extra beef and the sticky toffee pudding was cold even though we requested the ice cream to be on the side. And throughout all of this, it was freezing cold inside the restaurant and therefore the food became cold...

We came here for a special Sunday lunch as had in-laws visiting from abroad and it was my first lunch out since having a baby, so was really looking forward to it.

On the plus side, the Sunday roast was very tasty if expensive, and our waitress was nice.

However, after booking a table inside for five people more than a week in advance, when we got there they didn't seem to have organised one so they pushed together two tables where there wasn't enough space, putting four place settings on one side of the table like The Last Supper and one person squeezed in on the other side at the far end. We tried to rearrange it so we could sit facing each other a bit, but there just wasn't enough room - one of us had to keep standing up every few minutes to let wait staff go by!

When I commented on the strange set up, instead of apologising the manager was incredibly rude, saying: "Perhaps you'd like to leave? Obviously our tables aren't up to your standard" The tone of her voice was so unpleasant ... Like I'd asked for champagne and caviar, rather than a sensible table where five people could sit and talk and enjoy a meal. To be honest it really upset me, especially after looking forward to the lunch so much. Where were we meant to go?

The only alternative offered was a table outside (in October) and then later a corner table inside but which would not be ready for another half hour. And the whole time the attitude was like we were being unreasonable and they were tolerating us. If we had turned up with no booking I would have understood a bit more, but I did book. They gave us £35 off the £140 bill in the end, but added a £25 service charge on top anyway. And I would much rather have paid full price and enjoyed a...