Trade — Restaurant in London

Coffee and food were decent but the service was quite bad. When coming in I waited to be seated as the sign said, the manager(?) on his laptop in front of me completely ignored me for a good 30seconds so the barista told me to go take a seat. Its 10am on a Saturday, there’s plenty of sitting, so I go to a table at the back. As I settle the waitress downstairs tell me to take a singles table. Okay it was a table for 4 and I was waiting on a friend to come but I thought I could sit wherever?! Isn’t it your job to guide people through your place? Later on, when I asked the man who worked there where the toilets was he seemed annoyed to have to talk to me. Oh and then a couple entered and he actually welcomed them and showed them to a table. So do you pick and choose who gets good service or what? My friend ordered drinks while I was in the toilets and the waitress took away the menus without asking if we’d order any food later; thankfully we memorised what we wanted to order.. When we wanted to pay, I told the downstairs waitress how we wanted to split and she just nonchalantly said “you can calculate it”. I’m happy to do it if you can’t split on the machine like in other restaurants but would it hurt to ask for help politely and not tell us to do it like we’re asking for a task way outside of your job? If you don’t like people don’t do hospitality.

I don’t usually pick on service as there’s often a reason to have a less than perfect experience like a stressful environment or an overwhelming crowd/delivery orders. It was not the case here, the staff just didn’t care. I’m French and I’ve had my fair share of sassy to borderline rude staff, but at least they do walk the customers through how the restaurant works and is laid out efficiently and are helpful.

Trade does have a nicely large dining space and a garden. If not for the poor service, I would have come back since it’s so hard to find good decently sized brunch places and...

Visited as a couple for a weekend away in London. Was having a walk around London to see the nearby sights and was drawn into the cafe by the lovely smells that were coming out of it. We went in and had a look at the menu, but unfortunately it was near closing but saw the desserts that were on display and took a couple of those away instead. We had the blueberry and coconut cake and the oat and raisin cookie. Both were well-made and delicious. If we had to pick a favourite it would be the blueberry cake. It had yummy icing in the middle too.

We returned the next morning and had a sit down brunch. Had two dirty chai lattes which were both nice and a decent size. Had the cuban club sandwich and the buttermilk pancakes with banana, chocolate chips, peanut butter and maple syrup to share. Portion size was brilliant and was definitely filling.

Out of curiosity, we looked around the area to see what desserts other cafes had on display, but we found ourselves instead returning to Trade as none seemed to compare! So we took two more desserts away to enjoy in the evening after a concert that day. This time we tried the carrot cake and the chocolate and date bar. These too were delicious and tasty. The date bar tasted healthy and well made. Would say the cakes here are a winner. On both visits all the staff were lovely, friendly and welcoming. They were extremely helpful and accommodating, especially when we mentioned about sharing our dishes between us, when the staff went out of their way to split the food and give us sharing plates. Shout out to Louise and everyone else there too (Louise is the only name we got!!). If we’re in the area again, would...

So I’ve been to this place a few times now. The first two times I went the service was average & slow but the food good. The most recent visit I had was terrible.

Myself and my friend went for food, it was 3pm when we arrived and there were a few tables available. Firstly the lady told us to wait to be seated and then proceeded to forget we needed seating, I had to chase her again after 5minutes to seat us.

One sat, we ordered quickly as we had to leave by within the hour. After 30minutes, still no food, I chased with one of the staff. Turned out, they never placed the order and it was going to take another 10minutes to make the food.

We waited, food arrived and was lovely, that I cannot fault. However We had to shovel it down due to how late it had been. The manager visited our table and apologised, again this I cannot fault. As soon as we finished I attracted the attention of staff and asked for the bill due to our rush and explained that I felt we required some level of discount due to our bad experience. The lady went off to get the bill, 10minutes later...nothing. Not even a courtesy visit to the table to explain. We decided to stand up and walk toward the till/door, at this stage we were told they couldn’t find the manager so couldn’t provide discount.

To be honest the only person who seemed bothered about our frustration was the barista who had been great when we arrived too. He immediately ran downstairs and tried to find the manager but couldn’t.

In the end we left paying full price.

A horrible experience overall. No matter how lovely the food, it’s not worth it for...