Smith's Bar & Grill

Review summary

1. J

   Judy

   Melbourne

   1 review

   2.0

   1 review

   Dined 1 day ago

   1. Overall 2
   2. Food 1
   3. Service 5
   4. Ambience 3

   The food was abysmal - as in extremely poor quality, of the sort you would find in a chain buffet where people go for quantity, not quality. I understand it was the soft launch day of the Bottomless Roast menu. Hence, the restaurant was particularly crowded. However, I expected Smith's to have been better prepared and able to accommodate the number of people that were there, particularly given their typical prices for the menu options. For example, the chateaubriand is charged at more than £40 when having roast as an a la carte option. It came out looking like old meat, GREY, tough to chew and well-done. The piranha that we ordered after tasted much better at half the price point. I did not bother asking to have it redone because we had to wait an hour and 10 mins to receive our mains, meaning for a booking at 8:15PM, we ate at 9:45PM after finishing our starters at 8:35PM. The starters were also shocking. The ricotta pockets were dry and stale with a pile of deli ham next to it that did not add much other than making it overwhelmingly salty. The carpaccio did not taste fresh and was covered in sauce to mask this. The smoked salmon was strangely warm and also did not taste fresh either as the texture was somewhat mushy. Dessert was also underwhelming with the churros raw in the middle and barely browned before being served. The chocolate fondant was passable but honestly tasted as if I had purchased this from the Tesco dessert section and the ice cream selection was smothered in dessicated coconut which did not add anything to the ice cream and added an unpleasant texture. The saving grace were the waitstaff who were extremely friendly, approachable and accommodating. You could tell they were trying their best with the amount of people and orders going around.
   

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2. Z

   Zara

   London

   6 reviews

   4.0

   6 reviews

   Dined 1 day ago

   1. Overall 4
   2. Food 5
   3. Service 4
   4. Ambience 5

   Lovely restaurant and the food was nice, however service was very slow, we were there for 2.5 hours and didn't even get our dessert as apparently it hadn't got in through the system. We only found out when asked what was taking so long that we wouldn't be receiving it.
   

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3. J

   Joe

   London

   1 review

   1.0

   1 review

   Dined 1 day ago

   1. Overall 1
   2. Food 5
   3. Service 1
   4. Ambience 1

   Worst dinner experience ever, waited 2hrs for our Mains (that’s no exaggeration) when we asked about our mains at the 80mins mark, manager just said we just have to wait and that’s that, no apologies or trying to sort it out nothing. Very disappointing. Stayed for 4 1/2hrs bcoz everything was just so slow
   

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4. A

   Adele

   London

   2 reviews

   1.0

   2 reviews

   Dined 1 day ago

   1. Overall 1
   2. Food 1
   3. Service 1
   4. Ambience 2

   I booked the bottomless Sunday roast on a 50% discount so £22.50 each (w/o service), now for what I paid it was fair based on the amount food we consumed. But if it was full priced, definitely not. Firstly my guest and I were seated at separate tables! FoH clearly can’t manage when people don’t arrive together. When we were finally seated together, the table was dirty from previous diners. The food arrived lukewarm at best. The wait in between courses and even ordering another of the same course was so long. So many diners were all looking around trying to get the waiters attention who were clearly overwhelmed by the number of tables. The quality of the food also was sub-par, the presentation of the plates differed each time e.g. one plate had roast potatoes and tenderstem broccoli and the other new potatoes and normal broccoli - no consistency. They also got one of our orders wrong after waiting about 20 mins. The desserts took ages, the table next to us received two rounds of desserts in the time we were waiting for ours. The chocolate fondant wasn’t warm and the ice-cream was so frozen, you struggled to get a spoon through it. The cheesecake was a frozen one, not fresh as the inside was still frozen. Also, had to ask for water to be topped up and then gave up in the end as we couldn’t get our waiters attention. The portion size for the roast are small so you need to order at least two to feel satisfied - for example, one roast potato, one tenderstem broccoli! We didn’t complain as we had the offer price but like i said, has it been full price we would’ve done.
   

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5. E

   Emily

   London

   4 reviews

   1.0

   4 reviews

   Dined 1 day ago

   1. Overall 1
   2. Food 4
   3. Service 1
   4. Ambience 1

   This was the first day of their bottomless roast deal... so that may explain why it was so badly run. We were sat around a corner out of the way with one waiter serving about 10 tables. We were told we have the table for 90 minutes. We were only able to order our starters after 30 minutes. One of our starters didn't arrive until 30 minutes after the others. When we ordered our roast, it took an hour to arrive, which meant we were already outside our time limit and had only ordered 2 of the 3 courses without even getting seconds of anything. While they did allow us to still order dessert, this does not constitute a bottomless roast if you don't have time to order bottomless anything. It was just a 3 course meal. The food was tasty, and so for the half pice deal, I was satisfied. But it was not what it said on the tin, and I would have been outraged paying full price. They need to allow customers at least 2 hours if they cannot serve them fast enough and they need more staff and a solution in the kitchen for serving food faster.
   

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6. C

   Cherine

   London

   5 reviews

   3.0

   5 reviews

   Dined 1 day ago

   1. Overall 3
   2. Food 2
   3. Service 2
   4. Ambience 3

   Was their launch of the bottomless roast and think they were overwhelmed. The starter was very nice and set the tone. The main which was roast chicken took ages to come out, I feel they forgot about us until we asked. As we were waiting we could see all the mains go past us and was getting excited as it looked good, but by the time ours came it looked quite different and quite rushed, so was quite disappointing. Didn't get the opportunity to utilize the bottomless aspect as it all took so long, and you have a time limit. Our server was friendly so that aspect was positive. I think in time and when its less busy the service and food will improve.
   

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7. A

   Andy

   London

   1 review

   3.0

   1 review

   Dined 1 day ago

   1. Overall 3
   2. Food 2
   3. Service 2
   4. Ambience 4

   Nice clean looking restaurant when arrived, starters arrived quickly, but had to wait a long time for beef roast to arrive which was luke warm and the vegetables were cold. The dessert again took a long time to arrive. Also noticed it wasn’t just ourselves that were waiting from their mains and desserts. Glad it was all on offer otherwise I wouldn’t have be n prepared to pay full price.
   

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8. E

   Elena

   London

   1 review

   3.0

   1 review

   Dined 1 day ago

   1. Overall 3
   2. Food 3
   3. Service 1
   4. Ambience 4

   Good food but very long wait and the staff seemed quite annoyed.
   

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9. C

   Chelsea

   London

   1 review

   2.0

   1 review

   Dined 1 day ago

   1. Overall 2
   2. Food 3
   3. Service 2
   4. Ambience 3

   It was fine and a decent deal but wouldn’t return and pay full price. Clearly understaffed as while our waiter was very friendly, we had to flag him down multiple times to order, get water top ups etc. I was sat for 20 minutes and no one came to get my food order in this time. Apart from our waiter and the lady that greeted me at the door, the service was unfriendly with no staff even so much as smiling. We had a significant wait time for food and it was average (no crackle with roast pork!). So whilst it’s “bottomless” for 90 minutes, it’s almost impossible to get through the 3 courses due to the service.
   

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10. Q

    Queenie

    London

    1 review

    1.0

    1 review

    Dined 2 days ago

    1. Overall 1
    2. Food 1
    3. Service 3
    4. Ambience 1

    Booked for Ayllu not realising that it’s two restaurants in the same building, so the booking got mixed up (BOOKED THROUGH AYLLU WEBSITE). Was put into Ayllu and I thought that this does not look like any of the pictures. They had put us into Ayllu ‘outside’ and then later realised that the actual Ayllu was downstairs. Terrible experience as this was a surprise dinner for a 21st birthday. Food wasn’t great (small for the price). Overall experience with the actual service - Waiters and waitresses were polite and still tried to upkeep the general service.
    

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