Canteen

This was our first visit to this branch of the Canteen, despite our many visits to the Festival Hall and the nearby National Theatre.

The décor, design and location are very good, but we felt that the restaurant PR around the quality of its food was quite misleading.

Consistent with other reviewers, we thought the food was very mediocre at best – more like a up-market chippie – bland, over cooked, little obvious care etc. If they really are buying good quality ingredients, something is going badly wrong in the kitchen.

Front of house was a bit off hand, and service was generally inattentive and not very professional – when they bring the wrong item, it must be your fault, not theirs. It’s a long way from being a British food version of Wagamama.

Most of the customers were quite young, so perhaps the poor service and poor food were acceptable, given the genuinely low prices. However, I would prefer to pay a few pounds more and have an enjoyable rather than a poor finish to an evening.

Conclusion: Give it a miss.

What a disappointment. A well designed restaurant in a great location with an enviable south-facing terrace was let down by poor, inconsistent and slow service, coupled with a quality of food one would usually expect to find in a cafe.

For a restaurant that sells itself on the providence of its food, to present a roasted chicken breast which was dry and tasteless, with a ‘salad’ of 3 lettuce leaves and a small pot of mayonnaise was inexcusable.

Regardless of the price, to murder a piece of meat in such a manner was inexcusable.