The Mute Swan — Restaurant in London

We were excited to try this restaurant based on the amount of gluten free options. My husband and daughter are both GF. My daughter is also vegetarian. So it can be challenging to find a restaurant with options.

We made a reservation for the upstairs dining room which is very warm and welcoming. Servers greeted us right away. We read that there was a dedicated Gluten free menu. However, we were told that the regular menu is marked accordingly and that they only have a general allergy menu. I inquired about the Vegetable Mezze Platter. I wanted to know what wasn't GF. The server didn't know and didn't offer to go check. I had to press her to find out since I was trying to find something for my daughter. Typically, only the bread and gyiza would have gluten. So I just wanted to make sure. Turns out that the hummus also has gluten. Which was very disappointing. I've never seen hummus have gluten. We ordered it anyway and they did put all gluten containing items on a separate plate, which was good. The platter was very large and pretty. But overall, just ok. Way too much pickled items. We would have enjoyed some fresh carrots or something without so much salt. I did personally enjoyed the hummus. Just wish my husband and daughter could have eaten it as well.

For our main courses, my husband and step-daughter ordered the halibut. They both agreed that the fish was cooked well. The flavors were different but worked. No WOW factor. But said it was "good". I read reviews about the scallop starter and also the truffle fries. So I decided to order those instead of a meal. The scallop presentation was nice. They were cooked perfectly. I wanted to love them but I felt there was a sauce of topping that kept interfering...like too much pepper or something. I couldn't figure it out. Also, the fries were good. Not great. I wouldn't order either again. My GF/Veg daughter didn't have much to choose. The cheese, potatoes, onion pie was out because of the onions. We thought the hummus would be safe. So she inquired on the curry dish. She really shouldn't eat spicy foods with gastro issues. But she asked the server and was told that it's typically not spicy at all but very flavorful. She was very nervous about it but the server assured her it would be good. Well, that was bad advice. I sampled it and wow, that was way too hot. My daughter ate the rice and tried to eat the dish but it was intolerable. She ended up not feeling well the rest of the night.

The other reason we chose The Mute. Swan was for their GF dessert options. But we were not impressed.

The service and decor were very great. We really wanted to enjoy the food. But overall, we were underwhelmed.

One other thing to note, there is very limited parking!!! We had to park across the bridge in the car park and walk...

I love the food in this pub; this is a wonderful location with a carefully considered menu and that shines through.

Having said that; we have not had a good experience tonight. For context, we were 15 minutes late for our booking which was rightly deducted from our 2 hour booking slot; something that we never disputed. We would however recommend to anyone visiting that the carpark for the pub is very small and as the pub is in a congested area we recommend leaving at least an extra 30 minutes at busy times to be able to actually make your booked slot; most especially if there is a rail strike. The restaurant kindly extended our booking by an additional 30 minutes which was a great gesture considering our fault during a busy evening. We all appreciate that this time.of year is complicated and stressful for those in front of house roles; everyone at our table has worked one. However we were astonished at the service that we have received, our starter took 30 minutes to arrive, our main course was with us for over an hour. Both courses arrived cold but we didn't feel we had time to really complain about this. When this was eventually cleared, we waited 20 minutes to be able to order our dessert at which time we were rebuffed by our waiter who told us that we may not have time to eat what we were ordering. When we made the valid argument that within our 2 hour time slot, 55 minutes had been spent trying to get hold of a waiter to clear a course, order a course or serve it. It makes no sense to me whatsoever that it was our fault by this point in the evening that we were 15 minutes late.

From the time that all 4 people were at the table and the extension to the slot was added; we had 2 hours to be served 3 courses. There were ample opportunities, as waiters, to speed up the service of our food and get us off the table in the agreed time; they made no such undertaking. Following on from this unpleasant back and forth, where no reasonable solution was reached, we enjoyed our desert. We enjoyed our desert as much as any person can enjoy their meal whilst being pointed at by a waiter and glared at by customers who had been clearly told that it was our fault they were waiting for the table. There are also a number of other moments that I am missing out here for fear of giving too much of a rant that will likely fall upon deaf ears.

I maintain that we really like this pub, this was not our first visit and it likely won't be our last as the food is of an excellent standard. We will likely continue to recommend this to friends and family despite the poor experience we have had this evening however we remain,...

This was an absolute terrible experience; one of the worse I have had as a parent of a disabled child and we often have a plethora of negative experiences. It's fair to say, we didn't even get past the door. We had a wondeful inclusive day at Hampton Court and was advised to go here to get my child something to eat before travelling home. When I arrived on the sign it mentioned "no prams" inside. I've never in the history of my life been met with a sign that read that. My child is disabled and has Down syndrome. She uses her pushchair as a mobility aid as another disabled person might use their wheelchair. I specifically asked if I could bring it inside as thr sign read "no prams" and people were smoking outside. I was told by the young man yes. When I came back in with her and the pushchair I was then told that "no children were allowed downstairs" there was no lift, nothing but a spiral staircase case and a heavy disabled child that I was expected to carry up the stairs to get her out of the way. I just wanted to feed her. Looking around at the demographics of the establishment there was nobody in there that resembled me and not only were we discrimated based on age and ability, but the demography had me suspect as well. I objected because it was nonsense. I was told by the then older man, it was a "freehouse" (again nonsense) and they would have to check with the manager. At this point I wouldn't have eaten from there even if it was free, because the stress created was unnecessary and unacceptable. A simple sign that read if your different don't come in would have saved me the drama, but if course the EqA (2010) doesn't allow for people to be so honest. If it said no children allowed I would have been more inclined to move alone, be honest about your signing and save people the additional drama. If you are classified as different in the ways I descirbed above, do...