Duck & Waffle

I came here on a Tuesday lunchtime trying out the venue for a client entertainment dinner. After all the hype I had heard about it I wasn't surprised that the food was beautiful I couldn't fault it. A friendly attentive waiter made his recommendations that were not to disappoint. A truly mouthwatering delight. I will definitely visit again but I wouldn't take more than 6 people, you need to be generous with dishes you order. Between 2 of us we had 6 including dessert and decently priced it came to £70 including our a glass of wine. The view is fantastic one of the reasons I thought it would suit my event, the private dining room for 15 people is simple and spacious enough with a view looking out over the city.

High-rise dining that really works

As a Londoner, I have a very low opinion of all-night places. Stinky toilets and sticky carpets. And when I heard the Duck and Waffle was in the City on the 40th floor and we were going on a Saturday morning, I just thought of all of all the City youths that had spent the best part of the night before throwing whatever liquids they had around the place.
Things didn't bode well when I phoned up to book Brunch at 10 in the morning the same day4 and was told the next table wasn't available until ‘after midnight’. But if we wanted to walk-up, we were welcome to. So we took the chance.
In fact, when we did present ourselves we were really surprised. Not only was it nothing like any of my fears: it was modern and spotlessly clean, including the toilets, but the lift whisked us up to the 40th and we were shown into seats about 15 minutes later.
I expected the food to be ridiculously expensive, reflecting the hear-stopping views. But Full English Breakfast (available until 4pm) was only £13.00, which is a sub-hotel price. And they serve croissants and yoghurt and waffles (and Duck, of course, ino rder to comply with the name of the restaurant). I didn't think my stomach would tolerate a Whole Roasted Chicken before midday, nor for that matter Spicy Ox Cheek Doughnuts, which I note you can have with added Apricot Jam. But we did try the Columbian Eggs, which you can have served with Chorizo and Avocado Sides. It was all delicious, freshly cooked with friendly service. A staircase linked the restaurant with Sushisamba
The crowd was – strangely enough – mostly three-generational families, with a sprinkling of foreign diplomats. But as the glass-sided lift whisked us down again to street level, there, on the pavement outside, propped up against the glass, was a City Boy, trying to work out where he was.

Worth visiting

Amazing restaurant, amazing location and amazing view. The staffs are very nice and welcoming, the food is excellent :)

Less than meets the eye

The Duck and Waffle is really about the experience of taking the lift at street level and being swooshed to the 42nd floor at hyper speed. It's about seeing the dome of St. Paul raising before your eyes as you ascend and the dizziness of being at several hundred meters above the ground, looking out of the window and reminding yourself that this is still one of the most beautiful, energetic, exciting cities in the world. Unfortunately the restaurant is mostly about that and not much about the food. We were deluged with conceited, over stretched dishes. The signature (yes the duck served on a waffle) was distinctively un exciting. The textures don't go together, nor do the flavours. The pig ears (another signature dish) were rubbery and tasteless, we know food carts in East London who do a better job at that at a fraction of the price. The spicy ox check doughnut is so ill conceived that it beggars belief: no subtlety, it is a confusing, preposterous dish. The only high point was the charcuterie served on blocks of Himalayan salt. Full marks go to the service, the view and the atmosphere and to the fact that they are open 24hrs a day. However, go the for drinks, a chat and to enjoy the view but don't buy into the hype and for the food go somewhere else.

I don't know if I was just unlucky but I went to this restaurant last night and felt like I was part of a weird food experiment! I have to prefix this review with a note to say that I did tell the staff how unhappy I was and they were apologetic.
So you arrive at this restaurant via a super fast elevator which deposits you on the 40th floor (as previous reviewers have stated, it's a bit like the lift in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). The views, once in the restaurant, are breathtaking and unrivalled by any other London establishment.
The staff took around 10 minutes to take our drinks order (and explain the menu) and then it took an additional 20 minutes to take the food order. Our reservation was for 5.45pm so we were choosing from the all day menu. I was incredibly dissapointed to find how limited the menu is. When I originally booked I had viewed a menu including things like battered sausages and other treats mentioned by previous reviewers but sadly (I think due to the time of day) we weren't privy to that menu.
So, when you order the idea is that a large plate would be to share and then you pick a few of the small plates between you. This makes sense, as the small plates mainly consist of vegetarian ‘side’ options such as heritage tomatoes and purple sprouting broccolli. The problem with this is that there are only four ‘large plate options’ (these are your proteins): Duck & Waffle, Steak, Chicken, fish stew. I am a little fussy when it comes to protein so chose the chicken.
I was informed (after the 20 minute wait) that there was no chicken. Only four main options and one of them (chicken no less) has run out before 6pm??! The waitor then went on to suggest the other three proteins and the daily special of lambs liver, all of which I wasn't interested in. As a last resort he said 'well you don't need to have meat' – No, I don't ‘need’ to have meat, but I would like it!
At this point hubby was ready to leave but as we were there I said we should just try a mixture of the small plates and starters. So we had bread, pigs ears and the ox cheek doughnut to start followed by the artichoke tortellini, pollack meatballs, sloppy joe and potatoes.
I don't know what the chef is thinking with the doughnut! We were expecting a savoury doughnut type thing with beef. You might think they would let you know it is a regular sweet hot doughnut covered in cinnamon sugar with beef stuffed in as an afterthought! I'm an adventurous eater but that is just wrong!!! The waitor came over and said ‘yes, the doughnut is a bit like marmite you either love it or hate it’ Well, considering the fact that only 35% of the public like Marmite this seems like a strange thing to put on a menu! Thankfully this was taken off of the bill.
The bread and the pigs ears were both okay although there are only so many pigs ears you can eat!
Next up was the procession of small plates. The tortellini was well flavoured but (if I'm being picky) the pasta was too chewy and not thin enough. The pollack meatballs were another stand out disaster.
They are basically little balls of blended pollack (a bit like boudin blanc but with fish) and were sitting in a lobster sauce and covered in breadcrumbs and parmesan. The sauce was ok but the texture of the meatball was enough to make me gag and they had a weird sour milk flavour – I think this was maybe a butter that was being used though as the hard boiled potatoes had the same flavour.
The sloppy joe seemed awkwardly out of place. It was a large hotdog bun filled with a mutton bolognese, it tasted ok but next to all of the other plates with their dainty presentation it was just strange.
I have to say that in between these disgusting courses the waitors were checking in with us to see what we thought but we were so unhappy that even this became annoying!
When we got to the end of the meal the waitor said ‘do you want to see the dessert menu, or no?’ (I think they could tell how annoyed and fed up we were!). We did order dessert though because we were still so hungry! I had the deep fried mars bar which I have never had before but was quite interested in. Unfortunately it tasted like the same oil had been used to fry my dessert and someone elses meat so it tasted strange and unedible. I scooped out the melted chocolate and asked for the bill!
Overall we paid £72 without alcohol. A huge waste of money. We provided feedback to the manager as we left and were assured that they would inform the chef.
I can't blame the staff for anything that they did but ours weren't the only plates going back to the kitchen full, Duck and Waffle need to have a rethink of the menu!

Having recently moved to City for work, I was excited about the prospect of trying new lunch and dinner destinations in this area. Little did I know that one particular restaurant would turn in to an obsession…
Walking to and from London Liverpool Street, I would see queues of people outside The Heron Tower. They were waiting to go in a Charlie and the chocolate factory style glass lift, that whisked them swiftly up to the duck and waffle on the 40th floor. I had to do my homework and look up this restaurant.
So for my mothers birthday I booked us a lunch date for 2pm. Arriving with more than enough time to spare, we strolled along to glass entrance. It's all rather exciting and with in seconds we where at the top! (Take a minute to adjust to the altitude, you do get a head rush)
A little confused as to where to go from here, we wondered around the corridor to find the bar.
That was our first glimpse of the view. The bar is stunning, vibrant and sophisticated. It's open till late, so it has a really nice ‘take your time, relax after work’ feel about it.
We are walked round to our table in the next room, which is a comfortably intimate sized room, it would be great to hire out the enitre floor for a lavish party i think. Anyway, you're left with your menus and a chance to admire the view and soak up the rooms gorgeous, silky atmosphere before ordering.
The kitchen is open to view and sitting down next to the window gave us a chance to look at all the delights of London. With a birds eye view of the Swiss Re building (the gherkin). You could see Canary Wharf, the Olympic stadium
Tower bridge and all the little building in between. (The weather could had been better but this is England)
The waiter was delightful, he explained the menu and roughly what size the portions would be, sharing, non sharing etc which was very helpful. He also told us a little bit about the restaurant and the chefs which was really nice. (I like a little bit of a background story)
We ordered three starters, Battered Sausages, tomato and goats cheese bread and rabbit pistachio and cranberry pâté on ciabatta bread
It was a feast in itself! We shared so we could have a taste of everything, it was delicious! My favourite had to be the rabbit pâté it's sweet and savoury balance was incredible defiantly would order that again! The sausages in batter were amazing, the crunchy batter was perfect and the sausages were juicy and full of flavour inside – could had done with a few more of those!
We went for the duck and waffle and it didn't disappoint. A mixed reaction from mother as she wasn't sure about the maple mustard syrup (which the waitress said not to pour all over the dish – listen to the waitress!)
Pouring little by little of the syrup onto a waffle, duck egg and duck bite and eating it altogether is sensational! An absolute must! For dessert, mother went for the pear soup and I went for the brownies and ice cream.
The pear soup was accompanied by various different styles of pear pieces on a ginger bread stick, lovingly put together over the bowl.
My brownies were warm and were slowly melting the soft vanilla ice cream around it. The honeycomb and peanut sauce with spots of marshmallow made this dessert fun and playful. With each bite I was greeted with different textures and levels of sweetness, it was exceptional.
After everything was devoured and the coffee had been drunk, the bill was paid which was to our surprise under £65 for two (amazing!) , we sat and watched the clouds and birds go by. We didn't really want to leave, it had been such a fantastic experience.
Its innovative style and playfulness with the menu, presentation, quick polite and knowledgable staff, 360 view and price will get you coming back for more.
I'm officially obsessed with this restaurant, I keep finding excuses to go back! Couldn't recommend it enough!

I tried to get a conventional reservation but that was a little nightmare-ish, not because of the staff, mind you, just because several other people had obviously heard about this place before me and had been a little more efficient than I was.
The key was to make it after hours, not hard as they apparently serve food 24hours a day (booze stops at 3am I believe). At 2am, it was lovely. The vue is great, the outside glass lift is fast (don't look if you have vertigo, my knees were shaking) and the restaurant was suitably dark and sleek.
I don't know if the staff had just started their shift but they were on the ball and awake.
We picked the ox cheek donuts (it sounded so wrong we had to !) and the duck and waffle.
None of it should work. But it does.The sweetness of the dough, the spices coating the donut went surprisingly well with the meat but the true joy came from the eponymous dish. As described, it's a confit duck leg, on a waffle with a fried duck egg (no greens there) and a generous helping of maple syrup (and mustard ?). It was delicious. The kind of delicious that one wants after a night out or a cold winter day. It should have been gross and should have left me feel heavy and on the verge of a sugar overdose… instead I felt happily satiated and wanting a hug.