The Steam Engine, Waterloo (PUBLOVE) — Restaurant in London

I feel bad leaving this review. The staff behind the bar were lovely and very apologetic for the shambles. However, we ended up leaving an hour and a half after ordering lunch without eating.

We visited for lunch on Sunday (15 December). The pub offers a nice sounding but limited menu. It's basically burgers, either chicken or beef, with fries and a selection of toppings for the fries. I think there were a few salads as well. I tried to order a fried breakfast which the menu said was available until 6pm however it was not on. That was fine and I was happy to order a burger and loaded fries.

We were a table of 6 and the first person's food arrived an hour after we had ordered. One more meal arrived every ten minutes for another half hour until the last two of us gave up and cancelled our order. There was a large table next to us who also had their food delivered bit by bit over an hour and eventually cancelled the last dishes.

The worst thing though was the fact that we were sitting about three feet from the open kitchen. There were two chefs there at the beginning, a younger guy and an older guy, part way through the older man was replaced by another man who was clearly far better and got things moving. If the kitchen staff are not competent they should not be on display. In the time we were there we witnessed:

the older man and younger man arguing over orders.

several dishes cooked wrongly piling up on the service area covered by plates to hide the mistakes.

the waitress telling the chefs off for taking "at least an hour" to prepare orders.

the older chef spending a full minute (we timed it) positioning a tomato slice on a burger bun.

the younger man holding a burger bun while the older man spooned salsa onto it (not really a two man job).

salsa being thrown all over the serving area.

the replacement chef shouting at the younger man that they had had £100 in refunds the day before and £200 today and "how could he say he'd worked in hotels and restaurants when he worked like this".

burgers being taken apart after being made to add missed ingredients.

orders coming out of the electronic order machine and piling up on the side with neither man even looking at them.

the waitress returning to repeat orders multiple times and being completely ignored.

By the end we were laughing because it was so farcical.

I can't comment too much on the quality of the food because I didn't have much. The portions increased and the quality seemed to improve a lot when the replacement chef started cooking (because of the long delay some of us had food cooked by the original team and some by the replacement). The chips served to my friend who got his plate first were undercooked to the point of being raw and his burger was overdone. The loaded fries which came last were nice but by that point we were so hungry almost anything would have seemed amazing.

When my husband was getting a refund the waitress was apologetic and said it wasn't usually like that, she asked if we'd been before so I guess she was hoping we had seen that they could do better. Based on the reviews on here they clearly can as others have not had the same experience but I can only review what I experienced.

To improve they need to (a) either train or replace the kitchen team or give them some proper training and (b) either close off the open kitchen or not put staff there who can't act professionally in front...

Stayed here for 5 nights with my boyfriend in September of 2024. We had an averagely good experience, but didn’t expect much as we definitely booked based on location (5 min walk from the tube) and rates at the time we looked for a place to stay (about 3 months in advance of travel).

It was honestly “just fine”. They have Hot showers that go on forever, daily cleaning from a lovely attendant, food and drinks are available 24/7, and they have some pretty cool staff! Grace especially stood out with her consistent professionalism, genuine smile, and warm energy. . . Even when I was bit clueless and accidentally made her job harder, she was a standup guy. Truly Ace! There was also a blonde woman with glasses who was a joy to interact with, though I regret I didn’t get her name as I didn’t see her after she checked us in our first day.

However, here are some details that may actually be important to you: we saw many guests of all ages, including young adults with their parents, etc, so it’s an age-inclusive hostel, which I think is great! However, I’m only 28 and the bunk beds in room one threw my back out after the first night. . . Which isn’t something I struggle with. The mattresses bore the pronounced impressions of many MANY heavy bodies sleeping on them. . . Or they were just old af. 🤣 in addition to that, the bathroom floor is literally always wet because of the showers, and you have to make sure there is soap and paper before you go (made that mistake too many times 😮‍💨) because they only get tended 1x/day. The pub is the only common space to chill, beside your bunk, but they have board games, music, and food available always (plus drinks!)

I’m sure it would be the perfect spot for some, for us, it was a warm bed with a safe place to keep our things as we caught as many rush tickets in the West End that we could. All in all, I’d stay there again (but on a different bunk/mattress), but as an introverted person who doesn’t consume alcohol anymore, I’d prefer a place with a communal kitchen, lounge, or some such quieter place to interact with other guests.

(Unrelated to the hostel, buuuuuut advice for theater goers: Screw TodayTix, just go to the box office of the show you want to see 1hr before the performance time and ask what tix they have left. If you’re willing to sit by yourself, you can get even better deals than the last minute tix they...

I'm rating the restaurant only, not the rooms/ hostel.

It was decent. A touch disappointing if I'm going to be completely honest, because I had big expectations.

I'll start by saying the menu is very good, they have some nice burgers on there, I personally could have had any one of four. The burger I had, the hot one, I think it was the priciest, was very good. I'll even say the burger alone is a four-star burger.

I didn't like the fries at all. This is personal preference, but I'm not a fan of that super-crunchy, very-fried chips that tend to be too oily. I know a lot of people dig it, but it isn't for me. I also think that size-wise the regular portion of fries is on the small side.

I also think the service, I mean bless her, but the woman who took our order seemed a bit lost. I'm not saying anything negative other than that, she just needs to up her game because she was nice enough, just a bit 'head-in-the-clouds'. I really hope that doesn't come across as rude, I'm trying to make this as honest as possible.

Then there's the price. It's just too expensive for a burger and chips. You can find better value even in more central parts of London. Again, I'd like to praise the burger, the biggest problem is that I've just had too many burgers that were better in recent times. It is a four-star burger with two-star fries and there are better burgers out there.

I say all this but I would go again to try the other burgers on the menu and maybe the £9 lunch meal is the value choice with a basic burger that I assume is smaller - that could be a good shout. But the chips would be the same, that's the problem.

If they sort out their fries and don't make them so crunchy and overcooked and the next burger is good, I'll happily amend this review and up the rating because I want to rate it higher, I just...