It's a great location, easily accessible. Decor/layout - fantastic, the music - superlative, dancing space - excellent; Ultimately unimpressed with the place because once you get past the former, the food and the staff's level of service orientation are actually the most important aspects of any venue and both of these were in a very sorry state the night I went. 21st Jan 2015
Luckily the bar staff were so shit, I had great contact with many of the other customers - nothin like contempt for a third party to bring two parties together!
The space is excellently designed with a stunning green wall of living healthy plants - sorely in need of a good cleaning. There is a glass roof that angles into 2 metres of glass wall that backs a mezzanine/balcony. that though not in use that evening would be a fabulous place to dine. It must give 100% available daylight to the plants
At first glance the drinks are great value. Happy hour from 5-0, w shots with mixer for 6 quid, a single is 4. After 9pm it only goes up to 6.50. the problem is that the doubles are no way doubles!. firstly the strengh of the drinks in terms of taste varied every drink but the amount of ice was constant and you can't fit that amount of ice and a double and a mixer in a glass the size they were using.
After 6 doubles even dancing as much as we did and my capacity for spirits my level of sobriety and ability to speak and think lucidly wee barely grazed. I knew I was right when I didn't even get vaguely bolshy at the appalling treatment I recieved from the bar staff and the fact I held a tune in the taxi on the way
home!
Presuming that they used the smallest legal measure in the UK a double spirit should be a minimum of 50ml(max of 70ml) 300ml (6 small doubles). The glasses were under probably about 300ml size. Try it fill a glass that size with ice, then add your mixer - normally a mixer is 1.5 - 4 times the amount of spirit, now try and see how much spirit you can fit into the glass. The put the spirit in last and didn't stir so the first drink was heady but, we were drinking gin and tonic and I always stir and squeeze the lemon.
I didn't bother complaining, the band were fabulous and I had so much fun with the other customers also complaining about them in front of them I thought that was enough compensation.
The bar was busy, not helped by the fact that the staff were the worst trained I've come across in years in London. The lack of consistency in strength of the drinks made it worthwhile waiting for one of the staff, the price difference made it worthwhile waiting for another one. Every body tried to avoid getting served by two of them who were rude, preferential - one only wanted to serve pretty girls the other pretty boys, they also charged the most and served the weakest drinks!
It says that it's restaurant but the kitchen was closed before 9pm and the only thing available was a "Pork sausage roll"which looked like good value for 3.50 in that it was a fairly large slice. The pastry was good! I mean excellent actually with a % of lard and the rest butter, light melt in your mouth but held it's shape. The meat on the other hand had been good at some point, possibly 2 days previously. This was apparant in that despite the texture being like straw encased in cardboard if you chewed bravely on, it eventually disintegrated and went down.
The bar staff lied about the roll - which they said was delicious. so either they ate it hot, straight out of the over or with some kind of a sauce or they were just liars.
