Royal Exchange Grand Café

Firstly – what an outrageously beautiful venue! There are very few buildings that have real wow factor but the Royal Exchange has it by the bucket load. Beautiful boutique shops surrounding a central open space that accommodates the Grand Cafe, endless height to the glass roof and glorious balconies from where you look down onto the proceedings below.

Such a shame then that the venue was SO cold! It was late February when I went and granted it was cold outside, but apparently the under floor heating just doesn't really work and the venue is simply too large to be heated successfully. The result was that I had lunch wearing a coat, scarf and wishing I had brought gloves and a woolly hat as well! No doubt in the summer it will be great, but wasn't impressed!

The other stand out thing was the sheer lack of service. Disappointingly, I was sat in the cafe for almost twenty minutes before I could catch the attention of a nonplussed waiter and then he showed no interest in the fact I had no menus nor ordered a drink. Still, the cold had set in and I was determined to get at least a cup of tea alongside my grapefruit juice (which was freshly squeezed and lovely incidentally).

Food menu duly delivered I decided on the open lobster and avocado sandwich as I was after a light lunch. And a light lunch is exactly what I got – although the taste and presentation was very good, the amount of lobster I got in the sandwich wouldn't even have moved a set of scales. Miniscule amounts of lobster, contrasted by an over-sized mound of slightly under-ripe avocado. For £18 or thereabouts, it was a serious disappointment in the value stakes. To make my ‘light’ lunch a little heavier, I then ordered a seafood platter for one – oysters, prawns, langoustines and dressed crab. Now this was more like it – fresh rock oysters, lovely prawns, langoustines that if I was being picky were a little overcooked, and lovely crab.

Service was still appalling though as I was left with empty plates on my (tiny) table for a good ten minutes or so.

Overall? 5/10. Maybe 6/10 because the venue is just lovely and a table on the mezzanine, which I went up to have a look at, would make the sense of occasion even greater. Lovely venue, really lovely, and the food actually wasn't bad at all, just a shame the service is so bad. Value for money? Not too bad, although avoid the lobster sandwich if you want to actually eat something. The seafood platter is better at £21 although I would imagine the sirloin steak at the same price would be a more substantial meal.

I work in the West End and regularly need to meet people who work in the City or Canary Wharf. The Royal Exchange cafe is my meeting place of choice as the breakfast is excellent, lunch is yummy, afternoon tea is alright and it's pretty well priced (seafood platter with oysters, crab, langoustines and prawns for £21 per person). It's very handy for meetings as it's always buzzy and noisy so no-one can overhear you, and it's quite smart. It's also always bright, even on a dark day.

However, the service varies from lazy to awful. It's not unknown to wait 10 minutes for a menu, and today I had to ask for my drink three times. They then brought me (and tried to charge me for) someone else's drink. When our food arrived it was delicious as usual, however everything we ordered was cold (seafood platter, tomato salad, mixed leaf salad) so I don't know how it took half an hour to arrive.

If the service was sorted out, this place would be a perfect tasty, smart but informal place for meetings or lunches with friends.

For civilised drinking this is up there. The gallery has areas that you can reserve, they are very cozy and romantic. The surroundings are beautiful and due to the impossibly high ceiling the acoustics are impressive with voices echoing around you. The drinks are around £10 each and they have a good selection of spirits. The staff on my last visit were very attentive and polite. If you go there I would advise you to reserve a seated area as this is a very busy venue and the seating is sparse – which is good as you get alot of privacy.

We had lunch today (8/9/09). All the food was very salty. My wife's pasta (main) had cheese sprinkled on it although she does not like parmesan! My dish was chicken with lentils. Again, very peppery and salty.
Very slow service & it wasn't very busy!
Sad to find such a lovely setting on a hot sunny day and then find this below par experience! We loved the interior of the building —— fantastic. But we did go for Lunch !!