Brumus at the Haymarket Hotel

Tried Brumus in Feb 2011 for a post theatre dinner, due to its proximity to the Comedy Theatre. The play didn't finish until 10pm.

Decor and furnishing is very trendy and warm, with unusual colours, which works well. However, the dining room was virtually empty, so naturally lacked atmosphere – but at least it meant that we could take a window seat and watch the world go by in the Haymarket, which can be entertaining.

We chose some of the more expensive items from the a la carte menu. The food was fairly good, although nothing exciting or great, but much better than we had expected for this very touristy part of London.

Unfortunately, our waiter's service approach switched between a) being completely unattentive (chatting to a colleague) and b) being rather patronising, talking to us as if we were newly arrived tourists who had never eaten in a decent restaurant before. Remarkably similar to that irritating habit of some French restaurants !!

Cost £100 for 2 for 2 courses inc service ex all drinks, or £160 in total. In my view, completely mis-priced and very poor value for the quality of food and the poor service. Felt like a “fleece the hotel residents” price level. A shame, because it’s a nice room, conveniently located, and the food was perfectly OK.

We won't be back.

We tried Brumus for a pre-theatre dinner due to its excellent position next to the Theatre Roayl Haymarket. It was the wrong choice of restaurant. The service was extremely slow. Combined with a gas supply problem in the kitchen, that meant that we were left with just a few minutes to bolt down our main courses. That was a pity as the food was actually quite good. We never got as far as desserts/ coffee. The waiting staff have perfected the art of ignoring customers trying to catch their attention which made us particularly frustrated by the time that we left. Avoid.

At £16.95 for two courses the pre theatre set munu looked to be good value and I guess it was. So how, in just over an hour, did the two of us manage to spend a hundred and twenty quid?

I left the bill on the table – to hot to move – so from memory it went something like: two gin and tonics at about £9 each. Two glasses of champagne (well, it was my birthday last week) at about a tenner each and a glass of white wine each with our meal at eight pounds a go. I incautiously ordered two portions of veg at four pounds each and we finished with a single espresso each. They finished by adding a 12.5% service charge.

One hundred and nineteen pounds.

This was the Brumus Bar and restaurant which is part of the Haymarket Hotel. All the reviews describe it as trendy. That should have been warning in itself. The food was OK, the staff were trying – no really, they were fine, only niggle was that the samphire which accompanied my mullet had too much wood in it – it was like eating tooth picks.

Good job my austerity conscious chum insisted on having tap water.