The Anthologist

Becoming a regular haunt

I've eaten here both at lunchtime and dinner and will return in the future. I like the slightly wacky (modernist) approach the restauarant takes: Basil plants insteat of flowers on the table, old paperbacks (Enid Blyton Famous Five this time) as check folders and an anything but standard menu. Service most of the time is attentive though, when they're coming towards the end of a shift the waiting staff can lose focus. There's an excellent wine list all at very reasonable prices (for London) and it's not full of all the usual overpriced, over expressed wine bar favourites. I don't know too many mid-market restaurants that have Reislings, Geverztraminer and Vioniers as standards. It can be noisy in this once office space stripped bare of any sound absorbing materials so, if you want to have a conversation, ask for a table to the right of the bar or one of the two booths to the left.

After work at The Anthologist

Had some nice dishes at The Anthologist with a few friends after work. Staff were friendly and efficient. Nice touch of bringing a freshly cooked king prawn with the Bloody Mary. Quite noisy so difficult to hear the conversation without raising our voices. Good value and quality.

A group of 8 of us went on a Thursday night for drinks and dinner to celebrate a friend's birthday. The atmosphere was buzzing, just what you expect from the City. We started by ordering cocktails which our waiter tasted before serving, but despite pulling a face which showed that he did not like the coctails he had made, he still served them to us. They tasted vile. Once we were seated the waitressing staff were cold and didn't make us feel in any way welcome. Some of our drinks orders were forgotten. Also some of the food was served cold. It is a shame because the dishes that arrived that were warm tasted and look good. We were also caught out at the end of the evening on our drinks bill. They wine menu showed wine as £10 which we assumed to be a bottle. It turns out in the low lighting we had not seen the much smaller print, which ran vertically up the side of the border, that the price quoted was not the bottle price which was double what we thought! When we raised this issue with the waiter, he went and told his manager, whose reaction showed that he did not care! Had we not been there to celebrate a birthday we would have made more of a fuss and refused to pay but we didnt want to spoil our friends evening. Its a shame as I was looking forward to trying the sister venue, the Folly, but after that night I shant be going there!

Talk about style over substance. This is truly an awful venue and will be avoided by me at all costs! The menu was interesting and showed some promise but the end results were just hopeless.

To start we shared an Antipasto Board that consisted of really cheap Italian cured meats and mass produced antipasti-just awful. This was followed by Crab linguini (the worst plate of pasta I have eaten anywhere for a long time), a very average beef burger and mediocre fish and chips.

It looks like they have decided to buy the “economy” range from a mass catering supplier and then build a creative menu. As for the décor, it gives you a headache.

So much was wrong with the service and our meal last night. I was a guest at a table of nine. Having ordered wine, a Chateauneuf du Pape, we waited 20 minutes to be told that they didn't have any. We then selected a Zinfandel and was told reasonably promptly that they didn't have that either. We settled for some wines from the main list. Its a poor selection on offer and the wines were over priced and very ordinary. When we came to order our meal. The beef had sold out, so at least three of us were compromised with our selection. First courses arrived cold. Its easy to see why. the kitchen turns out the plates and then they sit under lights waiting ages for collection and the accompanying meals for a table. Main courses were disappointing. For some the food was inedible and I'm still living with mine now. Then a bottle of Zinfandel arrived, somewhat of a farcical event given what had gone before. Our host attempted to discuss the situation with staff. However, they failed to recognise that the Anthologist was falling way short of an acceptable standard. With excellent restaurants less than 200 yards from this venue, I will give the Anthologist the wide berth it deserves in future.

Been here a few times now, purely for convenience as its underneath my office.
Do not, and I repeat, DO NOT waste your time or money going to the Anthologist. The Décor is quite good, the food is average and the service is astonishingly bad. The waiters/staff are so rude, ignorant and downright obnoxious you will be actively shocked. I endured one waiter shouting and swearing at the top of his voice in the middle of the restaurant for some 5/6 minutes. Once I asked him to be quiet he rolled his eyes, offered no apology and simply walked off to other recount the story to the other staff, only for them to find it particularly funny.
The bad service continued for the rest of the meal. Be carefull if you choose to use this venue for a business lunch/meeting as you will be left embarrassed.

Big, big waste of time. Somebody's obviously put a lot of money into decorating this place but is NOBODY keeping an eye on the staff?

Finally, a refreshing new venue for the city that isn't a Davy's, Balls Brothers or some other dark basement-type city dwelling. The Anthologist brings a new sense of adventure on Gresham Street, which is just perfect for these dark wintry city nights. The bar, restaurant and canteen formula works a treat for lunching city workers and those in the area looking for a place to catch up over a quick drink. Whilst at Anthologist for business drinks I was hosting, I was impressed with the chilled atmosphere (though beware, lights get lower ever hour or so!) and comprehensive wine list – everything from your usual house pinot grigio to a fine wine list, including a Château Musar from Lebanon. Food wise there is plenty to choose from, though I'm pleased to say it passed my test for a great bar – a perfect bowl of chips that also doesn't cost a small fortune! Only one bug bear, service was a little slow to begin with, despite us originally being one of two occupied tables. Thankfully this improved as the night went on.

I have been to the Anthologist a few times now and every time I am always impressed by the place. Not only is it a great bar but the food is always very creditable (and not overpriced). Somtimes it can be a little noisy if going for a quiet lunch (but the tables at the bottom of the restaurant make a big difference).

Like so many before it, this trendy new restaurant will die a miserable and lonely death when everyone realises that the food is rubbish and the service non-existent. Some genius had the idea of serving chips in garden pots which wobble precariously on the rustic wooden boards your steak arrives on; one of which ended up in the lap of a colleague (much to our amusement; less so his) – no recompense from the waitress who'd put it there. Mains finally arrived to a table already littered with plates from the first course. Couldn't help feeling a certain schadenfreude as the bemused waiter stood there wondering what to do with the arm full of plates he was already holding. Gothic candles served only to form mountainous waxy terrain across the table; finding a level surface to balance your plate and/or glass was another of the evenings challenges. Lack of cloak room served only to litter dining area in winter attire which could not be hung on the comfy bucket chairs (oh look, a positive). The pain might have been easier to bare if we'd sat there and got drunk (in which instance we'd have minded screaming at each over the music a little less). Alas, they gave us ample time to sober up between each round while we enjoyed another game of ‘stare at the empty glass’.
I hear lunchtime dining is less hectic; try that if you must.