The Red Lion — Restaurant in London

Dreadful service and poor quality pizza - a once-lovely pub now ruined by new 'management'.

I went for drinks last week only to find the beer garden had been stripped of all greenery, the lovely tree canopy now ripped out. The relaxed atmosphere in the garden was absent as surly, expressionless waiters prowled around. It smacked of a change of management. The garden retained its picnic benches, but it was effectively now a pizza restaurant.

At the bar I was served by a pleasant but unsmiling female member of bar staff, a contrast to the easygoing bartenders the Red Lion always had. Behind her was an Italian man (presumably her manager), serving drinks as if he couldn't be bothered. The thing I noticed most strongly was that they didn't speak to each other. You can tell staff are unhappy when they go about their business without communicating.

Back in the beer garden I saw a new type of menu - pizza. We realised then the highly regarded pizza restaurant from next door had taken the place over. The prices were very reasonable, so I ordered a margherita from the waiter who appeared as if by magic.

The pizza arrived in about five minutes, which was remarkable. But that was the only thing good about it. Underneath it was burned and on top some stringy bits of mozzarella sat in a soup of tomato sauce. I should have returned it but didn’t – and the taste of carbonised dough sat in my mouth all evening. When my plate was collected, the waiter asked how it was…I said it was burned. He gave no response as he went back to his post.

One of the friends who I was there with also had a pizza and said he wasn’t sure how to pay. He asked if he should do it right away or later and they said he could wait. Then on a trip to the bar he paid the waiter. I had to leave the pub early, so I assumed I could do the same as my friend and pay quickly.

I said goodbye to my friends and made to leave the beer garden. I approached a waitress and asked if I could pay. She ignored me. So did the second. Then the waiter appeared. “Why didn’t you ask for the bill at the table?”, he growled at me. I was taken aback. I said I was in a hurry to go and my friend had paid without having a bill delivered to the table. The waiter was very annoyed as he printed out the bill.

I refused to pay the service charge and asked a waitress if I could have a complaint form to protest about my treatment. She said she would call the manager and when I saw her approach the ‘couldn’t-be-bothered’ Italian at the bar I realised it wasn’t worth it. I left.

So to sum up, this place is dreadful. The beer garden has lost its atmosphere, the pizza is badly cooked and the staff are rude and unwelcoming. You DO NOT run a restaurant – or even a pub – with serving staff who become irritated at customers just for asking for their bill.

Even if the pizza restaurant with the best reputation in the world decides to take over the pub next door, if you can’t do the basics like look after your customers and provide quality food you deserve to fail. And unless they improve their act,...

I would give 5 stars because the pizza is so tasty and delicious and I'm Neapolitan, some of them are very tasty and the panuozzo as well amazing. My 3 stars are because there is confusion on how to run the service: like a pub (free to order from the bar) or a restaurant (table service with service charge). There is a kind of pressure from some members of the staff to you to open a tab because they'll probably get the service charge at the end of the month which I understand. I even understand the service charge on the food like happens in restaurants, but if I'm sitting next to the bar and I want to have a pint after my food and paying at the bar, there is nothing wrong ordering from the bar without waiting for the waitress (esp when is busy), but if u do so, some people from the staff look at you quite bad and upset cause they can't charge you the service charge on the drinks u ordered, plus you can see the attitude when they walk away from you. If you order food, automatically after you have to order drinks etc only to the waitress which she will try (in a polite way of course) to keep you away from ordering straight from the bar cause those orders can't be add on the service charge 😆. I didn't open a tab last time (even if i got asked twice) because I was next to the bar, I ordered from there because at the moment couldn't see any waitresses, when I got asked to open a tab again and I was like up to you because I don't know what to say anymore I received a bill straightaway even if I was still eating and didn't ask for it (a bit like ok you don't want to open the tab so u have to pay now and leave). The waitress apologised but I felt awkward and pressured about the desperation to open this tab which believe me, people are more happy to give tips then feeling pressured about opening a tab because the service charge. Regardless this episode the pizza is amazing, I recommend it and some members of the staff like Priscilla are very good...

Very dissapointing experience at the Red Lion in Ealing when visiting with my sister and two friends.

We ordered two pizza's, one with extra burrata, and a side of truffle fries. What turned up was one pizza with the two toppings combined, no burrata and no fries. Apparently this is a restaurant speciality however it should be explained at the till because if you order 2 pizza's, its fair to expect two seperate pizza's (which is what our friends got.) In our instance, we asked them to remake the pizza's individually as mine was a blue cheese topping which my sister hates so it couldn't be overlooked. The server was extremely rude about this issue and made us feel very uncomfortable.

In the meantime, our friends pizza's had arrived and been eaten but not their side of fries. Our fries then came out but with the incorrect topping - we had paid for truffle so were happy for this to just get added but they went back and disappeared for good.

Our replacement pizza's arrived but our friends had already finished theirs. Neither fries appeared so once we had all finished we were queuing at the bar to cancel the fries all together when both portions turned up (maybe 15 mins after the replacement pizza's.)

Because one of the server's had been so rude previously, we decided to just cut our losses and added all fries (untouched) to our leftover take away boxes - a pretty hefty waste of money and good fries.

There are so many great pizza places in Ealing, so unfortunately, whilst the food was good (hence the 2 stars) , it was not good enough to overlook the shambolic and uncomfotable service experienced at the Red Lion and therefore we will not return, and will advise our friends and...