The Refinery — Restaurant in London

The Refinery Bankside on Southwark Street lives up to the promise of its creators Drake & Morgan to create a welcoming environment with great cocktails and varied dishes. While part of a larger chain of restaurants, the interior and space of The Refinery Bankside feels distinctive, open and airy. The interior is complemented with a large outside dinning area with deckchairs and tables that serves as a relaxed meeting, drinking and dining point for groups. At times the place felt soulless, like the marketing showroom for a new beautiful apartment building but it was partly due to the time of day, (4PM on a Wednesday).

My biggest surprise came from the staff who effortlesly and consistenly made me feel incredibly welcome, which in itself is an achievement. Having visited The Refinery Bankside for a late lunch around four in the afternoon I was welcomed consistently and warmly by every staff member I encountered and my request for a table that could accomodate a laptop and a power plug was fulfilled with no hesitation. At no point were the servers or waiters rushing me to order while I tried to finish drafting a document on my laptop while reviewing the menu. The ordering process was delivered with a relaxed yet professional accuracy. At one point the manager visited the table and a fun conversion insued focused on food and photography. Special mention and thank you to Julia our waitress and Jamie the manager for exceeding expectations in such an efortless and genuine way.

The food and drinks menu caters to a variety of tastes offering burgers, sandwiches, meat cuts, salads, flatbread and sharing boards and a large kids menu. The food is not memorable but consistent good value. Having ordered at Rib Eye steak for £19, the crab bruschetta for £8 and the Trio of Fries for £11 I was delighted with the portion size and quality of the food. The only area for improvement is the desert options. A bit safe and overly traditional for my liking. Price wise The Refinery Bankside is great value in comparison to other restaurants in the area. The total bill for two people including one starter, two mains and drinks came to £81 including the optional 12.5% service charge.

Having visited one of its sister restaurants - The Refinery City point - in the past, The Refinery Bankside manages to deliver something that is rarely found in modern restaurants part of a larger group - a genuine effortless experience that leaves you walking away with a smile and a...

I was quite looking forward to my visit to this place. We were part of a birthday party group and we had all ordered our starters and mains beforehand online. Our starters were in general ok, my salt and pepper squid was acceptable and my wife's beetroot salad was apparently very good. The problem came with the mains. I had ordered a stargazy pie, delighted to find this Cornish speciality on the menu. Now a stargazy pie is made with sardines/pilchards with their heads sticking out from a pastry crust along with a filling of other oily or white sea fish, hardboiled egg and potato. It is NOT a fairly standard fish pie with a mashed potato topping, a scanty mix of salmon and mussels in a white sauce and a very tired, shell on prawn, pushed into the topping. Nor should a wild mushroom risotto have a total of 5 pieces of mushroom in a mix of stodgy rice which is what my wife was served. Other members of the party got grey, overcooked minute steaks with some of the most boring chips ever seen or tasted (although at least of a decent size). To be fair to the restaurant, apparently the duck salad was very good. The experience was not helped by the incessant loud music blaring from the loudspeakers which, despite our requests was not turned down. This meant we had to communicate by shouting, like the rest of the clientele, which, in the barnlike building, just added to the decibel count. Nor by the waiter bringing my wife an Ashai lager instead of the Aspell's cider she requested and being surprised when told they were not the same! The place seemed fairly full, so I assume other people may feel differently. However, we shall not bother to return. In the meantime I advise them to change the name of their "stargazy pie" before someone reports them to the advertising standards authority for...

My Colleagues and I booked in for our work Christmas dinner here. The staff were very lovely, service was excellent, and they were very patient while we decided on drinks. Honestly can't fault them. I really appreciate that the manager was flexible with our booking considering how last minute everything was. Unfortunately, the let down was the food. It was so bland/tasteless... And just "edible". We definitely won't be going back next year. The cheesecake dessert was the worst for me. It was soggy and seemed soaked in water? Again it was just very bland... I can't speak on their regular menu as I haven't tried it but the Christmas dinner didn't leave a good impression on us.

The other issue we had is that the restaurant has a deposit system in place where the deposit is forfeited in case of cancellation which is understandable. We found out on the day that a couple of colleagues could not make it due to contracting covid. The restaurant was informed of this but said that we had to pay the full price for their meals as they ordered food in. This didn't make sense to us as they'll be serving christmas dinner throughout December so surely it was a case of not cooking it?... (Maybe we're missing something tbf). This just felt very insensitive given the current climate. Obviously our colleagues couldn't just attend and put everyone, staff and customers at risk so what were they expected to do? I would just be mindful of this if you decide to do a group booking. The ambience was lovely. The restaurant was decorated in a warm festive way that felt really homely. Some of the chairs were crooked which we had a laugh about. Ultimately wouldn't recommend this restaurant's Christmas menu due to the tasteless food and experience with their...