The Strings — Restaurant in London

A bizarre experience. This is a premium-priced menu, with no better than mid-tier food. In other words, a tourist trap. For this price, you can get so much better food in London.

The worst part was the waiter who took our order. We asked the waiter for advice and suggestions, and he knew very little about the food itself, and then pressured us to over order. So for example, we ask him about the salad, and then he says, yes get 3 large salads, that will be enough for you. Understand what he's doing now? He repeated this process across the entire tapas menu, telling us nothing about the food itself or suggested combinations, but saying yes thats good, get 3/4 of that, that is enough.

So we ended up with an absurd amount of food. Far too much for all of us, it was laughable. You definitely dont need 3 or 4 tapas per person, you need 2 or 3 at most, even if you're a larger person. We barely had space to put our arms on the table. The food combinations made no sense. And then finally they came in and took a photo of our table for their social media! Bizarre.

And then how the food is served, we had to order the 3 large salads remember? They serve all the food at the same time (didnt tell us), so no timing, so basically you get 3 large salads, bread boxes, etc, all combined with your tapas which are now going cold because you're busy eating the over priced large salad and bread you had to order.

I want you to keep in mind that throughout this entire time, you are paying a premium price. With mostly water around the table, and 1 glass of wine, with all this food, we ended up paying around 65 gbp per person.

So all this amount of food, fine lets have a feast right? Who cares. But the issue is the food is mediocre at best. For the premium price you are paying, this is the most uncreative, uninteresting tapas you will ever have in London.

Ah yes, and the live music? Played the guitar 10-15 min at most. He told us they would play every 30 minutes. No mas. And then when the playing happened, there was very poor sound from the stage so you can barely hear the guitar. And we were sat right in front of it! We were there for over 2 hours. And then most of the time there was not even music in the restaurant, so just silence.

I've never written a food review before, but this experience was so bizarre, I feel I'm doing a public service by writing this to you. All the best.

PS: And yes, the title saying Italian & Spanish Restaurant should have been a huge red flag from the very beginning. I dropped the ball, after several years living in London. I know. Its my mistake. Don't...

We had just spent over two hours at the nearby St. Thomas' Hospital, where my wife had been having an MRI scan, and Strings is conveniently just across the road. I had read the reviews and thought this would be the perfect place to sit down for a meal and a drink before making the way to the train station for the two hour journey back home. After perusing the menu outside of Strings, the owner came out to greet us and invited my wife and I inside. I chose the steak, and my wife the chicken salad. Along with the food, I ordered a glass of wine and my wife a JD and Coke. The decor is very pleasant, and guitars adorned the walls - and I believe the owner plays the guitar in the evenings too! We arrived just after 2pm, and the restaurant was not busy. Only three or four tables were occupied. We saw the food come out to one of the tables as we looked forward to our own meal. But unfortunately we would never experience what our fellow diners were enjoying. After waiting a hour for our food, seeing one of the chefs on his phone in the kitchen, and growing increasingly concerned we would be late for our train, we asked a waiter how much longer our food would be. After going between the kitchen and the till, the waiter returned to tell us they had forgotten to prepare our food. He said that they could start to get it ready, but it would be at least another ten minutes; leaving us with little time to eat and get to the station to catch our train. So we asked for the bill instead so we could pay for our drinks and leave. But we were disappointed to find the bill included some of the food they had forgotten we had ordered! Thankfully they took that off after we pointed it out to the waiter. However, the bill for our drinks was still over £40. We left for journey home hungry, disappointed, and concerned we would miss our train. [We just about got to the station in time to catch our train, but...

Place look like a fancy restaurant and so did the menu. We expected way too much. The menu had potential but meals were poor. Nobody asked us how would we like our lamb stake. It was overcooked, tough and without salt or any other seasoning. The vegetables served with the steak were just two pieces of cold zucchini. The potatoes were kind of okay but far below the level we expected. Our children took two children’s meals and two pasta meals. The children said meals were tasteless. There were no any salad or other vegetables served with past. Basically, it was only boiled macaroni and some puréed tomato. Considering the quality of meals they were highly priced. I recommend them to get a new chef. I cook better. Also, they had three waiters but only one of them had skills required. Actually, one of them had his first day at his job, and he had no idea what to do and how to serve people. Even my 8 years old son knows more about serving. He wouldn’t toss cutlery over a table as he did. It was really embarrassing for all of us. Also, it looks like they mixed up our and another group’s order. This group had arrived before us, but steaks were served to us first. These people had to wait for a long time to get their own meals while watching others in that group and in our table eating what they had ordered. At this time it was our luck to get their steaks because we were in a hurry. Anyway, I wouldn’t like to see that a latter group would be served first with similar portions I am expecting. The place itself looked very nice and it has a good location near many tourist attractions. However, I wish we would have chosen another restaurant nearby. Even though we got discount I feel kind of robbed. Deeply disappointed. Best wishes to that waiter who tried to make his best to keep everyone happy. I wish he will find better workers...