Redhook - Amazing Food, Appalling Service and General Confusion

Last night, I went with a couple of friends to Redhook in Farringdon. I had read a couple of promising reviews for Redhook, so I was pretty excited to finally head over there for dinner.

The interior and the design of the restaurant is very nice and we were placed at a table in a private dining section. At first everything seemed to be going quite well, however, this was about to drastically change. 

The general confusion started when the waiter thought my pisco was a martini - a minor error which was easily solved by passing changing drinks with my friend. Although the first error was easily fixed, it was about to get much worse.

We had ordered the North American  Surf & Turf, which was supposed to be a 200g NY striploin & half  a Canadian lobster. However, to our big surprise when the mains came in the Canadian lobster had been replaced by a langoustine, as pictured above. When I asked the waiter about the main course and that maybe there had been a misunderstanding regarding which dish we actually did order, he answered that this was the North American Surf & Turf and that it was half a Canadian lobster on my plate. Somewhat chocked, I made the remark once again to his colleague who told me that they had run out of lobster, and that he had not had time enough to inform us about the change.

After a couple of additional comments from all the guests around the table, the waiter agreed on giving us a couple of more langoustine. Although, at this point it was all too late, as we all felt rather uncomfortable with the waiter trying to insist that it was actually lobster on our plates, and not doing anything in order to manage our expectations, nor informing us about the change in advance. 

On top of the lobster situation, there was also some confusion regarding the preparation of the beef. I had ordered mine medium well done,  however, the waiter told me that mine was medium rare. With all the confusion going on, I was too tired and hungry to complain about this as well, so I accepted what I was being served.

When we finally started eating, we could all agree on one thing. The food was just about amazing as the service was bad, and in my opinion this actually was among the top Surf & Turf that I have had and the sides was amazing, especially the spinach.

After finishing the meal, we were all in a better mood, and we were slowly starting to forget about the confusion and the terrible service. However, we were all to soon be reminded about this again. When it was time to pay, we were told that the main computer system was down and that it was not possible to pay. After fifteen minutes with still no sign of the system waking up again I asked if we could have some drinks on the house while we were all sitting and waiting for the bill to arrive, however, this was not possible but the waiter shortly arrived with our bill. five minutes later he came back as he had forgotten to put everything on the bill.

So the bad impression remains and after having spent almost £80 per person on a lobster that was actually a langoustine and experiencing appalling service - we all needed to go to a bar and have a strong cocktail, and we could all agree on that it is very unlikely that we will ever go to Redhook again.

redhooklondon.com