The Whitby Bar — Restaurant in New York

I booked The Whitby to celebrate my birthday and had the WORST experience. MY PARTY WAS BEING PROFILED. We were the only black people in there. I booked with the restaurant a MONTH in advance and were in communication with a lot of the members about seating (requested a booth seating over phone), it being birthday celebration, and basic questions about the tea package via email and phone call. They were nice and welcoming so I assumed the atmosphere would feel welcoming.

Upon arrival, got seated literally in the middle of the server walkway, with a tiny circle table for SIX GUESTS, some of my guests were in the MIDDLE of the server walkway or touching the door of the walkway, with no booth seating and NO TABLE SKIRT. EVERY single table had a skirt except ours and when asked our rude server said we'd be the only table without a skirt because it was "designed that way." I even asked for a new seating accommodation based off the requests I made in ADVANCE and they told me they couldn't because others already made requests. Even when I had discussed a month out.

Then following we saw them being helpful to Caucasian customers, parties of 3 even... SITTING AT LARGE BOOTH TABLES, not even using all of the space, behind us. We had to literally squeeze to eat our food because of how tiny and uncomfortable the table was. Another server even came out with a complimentary cupcake and couldn't even fit it on my table so I couldn't even properly blow the candle out. I also brought a cake and no longer even wanted their service to cut it because there was NO ROOM, meanwhile so many small groups behind us had larger tables... WITH A SKIRT.

How disappointing to come and celebrate your birthday and couldn't even get a nice service and uncomfortable seating. Especially after being in communication all month. I really do believe that the service and lack of accommodation unfortunately was due to the party being an African American group! Never again. 0/10. Luckily I’ve learned how to make a best out of poor situations or my birthday would have been...

I came to the Whitby Bar for afternoon tea yesterday and while nothing was bad, nothing was great either. It was just overwhelming average and for the price it cost, we left feeling disappointed.

I didn’t want to post this initially since nothing went “wrong”, but I felt misled by the overall great reviews of this place and didn’t want anyone else to make the same mistake.

To preface, I love afternoon tea, and have had it in several places in London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Atlanta. My rating of this place is in comparison to all of those afternoon tea experiences. The Whitby Bar is in a 5-star hotel (a hotel which has many locations in London) in NYC, which set my expectations high.

When we were led to our table in the back, we walked by many used tables (around 5) that were left untouched for awhile. The sandwiches were extremely bland, boring, and a little stale. The desserts were uninventive and upsetting. Why would such a high tier hotel serve two mini cupcakes that look like they’re from a grocery store as part of the afternoon tea? The scones were OK. We had a server offer to refill out teapots with hot water within 5 minutes of getting the tea pots and afterwards was not serviced at all.

I know this is a nit picky review, but that is because a restaurant hotel of this tier should do much better. If you’re expecting an elevated afternoon tea experience, please don’t expect that here. Even the afternoon tea I had in the suburb of Atlanta at a small family owned restaurant was much...

Great for Instagram, but not for a meal. Nice design and decor but very disappointing food.

To start off, the bread they served was severely undercooked, effectively raw in center. Scallop crudo appetizer was very unbalanced - very excessive use of truffle oil (I like truffles) and high acidity rendered the scallop almost irrelevant.

For mains, we had the lobster risotto and the halibut. The risotto was undercooked (not "al dente") and relatively bland and the lobster was very chewy and not flavorful. The halibut was served over cooked blueberries and topped with mushrooms, but the dish was not integrated. The fish itself was very dry and nothing and the components were not complimentary.

For dessert, we had three sorbets, a cheese platter and a glass of sauternes. The sorbet and cheese were tasty but unmemorable. The sauternes was served in inappropriate glassware and had a tremendous amount tartrate crystals in the glass (like they served the dregs of a bottle).

Nothing was inedible, but neither was it well made. You could have a much better meal for 25% of the price...