I wholeheartedly agree with all the extremely poor reviews of this place. Never have I experienced such mediocre and over priced food, but worst of all is the service. Appalling. I too witnessed the group of ladies being confronted by bouncers at the door as we tried to leave and the manager shouting out "stingy b*tches". I couldnt quite believe my ears. NEVER EAT HERE.

ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE – AVOID AT ALL COSTS.This place is an absolute nightmare... Imagine being held hostage by bouncers in a so called restaurant to pay for drinks which the duty manager had agreed were on the house as the service was worse than bad.

Well this is our horror story which actually happened when we visited this establishment for the first and last time on Friday night. I will never be going to their Notting Hill Branch either.When our starters turned up (soup) we had no soup spoons. When the soup spoons turned up our soup was cold. Our wine bottles were not allowed to be left on the table, but as nobody seemed to be serving us we had to go search for our wine and serve our selves.

The main course arrived warm. The side dishes arrived twenty minutes later. All in all the service was disgraceful. We were constantly ignored. Then why did we stay you may ask??? Well after the debacle with the soup, we advised the ‘duty manager’ of why we were leaving.

He apologised and it was agreed that we would pay for our food and have free drinks. Upon leaving, we were advised that there was money outstanding on our bill and that they would call the police unless we paid up. The money outstanding was for the wine which we had agreed with the ‘duty manager’ we would not be paying for because of the beyond bad service.

You can imagine our absolute shock upon been refused the right to leave this establishment. Being told we had to wait for the police was comical. Naturally, the police never showed, and we were barricaded in and had to pay our way out. At one stage there were 3 bouncers blocking the door. So you have been warned.

I wish I could give this place 0/5. We went on Saturday night, and although when the food eventually came out it was cold, the flavours were great. However, 3 courses in 3 hours was a complete joke. The staff look good but are away with the fairies, and really just don't care at all.The worst was, when we were leaving a group of girls were being confronted by the bouncers... Apparently, because they refused to pay the service charge (as informed by the receptionist, who was equally appalled).. No one else could leave the enter the restaurant, and the managers wouldn't budge. Eventually they gave them more money, and as they were leaving the staff and manager started calling them 'stingy bitches', and 'if you cant afford to pay, don't eat here' in front of all the people waiting outside - it was just disgusting. I can only assume their service was as bad as ours...NEVER GO HERE!

My visit to beach blanket Babylon was absolutely appalling. On arrival we were asked to go to the bar to order our drinks, which we did, only to be ignored by the barman. He eventually took our order only to then be informed that he could not serve us as we were not standing at the correct side of the bar. We moved, and then were promptly ignored. We were then asked to sit at a side table where we waited for 25 minutes to receive our drinks, even though there were 6 members of staff chatting at the bar. Whilst waiting to be seated for our meal we asked for some bread while we were waiting. We were told that the bread was only for starters when seated at our dining table. When we questioned this, we were given 2 ROCK HARD rolls between the 7 of us. It was then discovered that they had run out - this was at 8.00 in the evening.

We were then seated in the dining area and given only 1 menu between all 7 of us. We were informed by the ONE friendly staff member that they did not have enough for everyone in the restaurant. Due to this we were told we had to wait until other menus became available for each of us to view their selection. By this point in time, we were not impressed and asked to speak to the manager. We were told by the shift runner that the manager was not present, and there was no-one we could speak to about the poor service. At this point we decided to leave the restaurant and were approached by two suited gentlemen asking what the problem was. When we asked what their position was within the company, they informed us they were the trainee Manager and the Manager in charge of the Notting Hill branch. They stiffly refused to tell us their names. After listening to the series of events, they made no comment and said there was nothing they could do, and were in no way apologetic or concerned by the list of circumstances, and were, in fact, appallingly rude.

We called this morning onlt be told that they did not to hear our complaint - people be warned.

I went there on Saturday too and also sat in the drafty corner, freezing !

What amazed me about the staff was there lack of common sense, they seemed totally vacant.

I asked a waitress if they had olives? the response was "I don't know" ..... no offer to find out. Then I asked another waitress if they had olives, again "I don't know" ..... so none of the staff know if they even sell olives??

Our wine took ages to arrive, the waitress that took our order clearly had no idea what was on the menu, then when she finally got the order taken down she left all the menus sat on our table until the mains arrived, even when we saw the head waiter tell her to take them away.

Two out of the four main courses arrived by themselves and the other two took so long myself and friend with food had to start. The other two meals arrive but one was completely the wrong order, the vacant waiter didn't seem to understand "that's not what I ordered" and went over to stand by a colleague with the offending dish and wait for him to deal with another complaint before asking what he should do. So we sat with three mains out of four watching the waiter stand in the middle of the restaurant with the forth one. By the way, one of the three main courses that we did have correct was stone cold so we had to send that back too. The pine nut and parmesan salad had no pine nuts... we even had two pepper shakers on our table instead of a salt and pepper.

What more could go wrong.

Our only saving grace was the head waiter, who was truly an angel !! he worked his B off, appeared to be dealing with a mountain of complaints, clearing up the mess of the incompetents he was working with and all the while with a smile on his face. He turned our evening around and if it wasn't for him the whole thing would have been a terrible disaster.

I thought it was a one off and had thought about going back. Looking at the reviews, perhaps not?

Wow, I thought our experience was a one off but having read the reviews below it seems this place really is terrible!! My friends and I were seated straight away but at the back by a very drafty window so I was wrapped in a cardigan for the meal.

Waited 20 minutes to get the attention of the staff to order. The waitress was slow and rude. Couldn't understand what we wanted from the menu so we had to repeat it several times. About 30 minutes later the food was bought out. One of the four dinners was wrong. The waiter basically told us that we should just eat it as it was too much hassle to take back to the kitchen. He said if we ate it he wouldn't charge us for it. (Not the point) Then my lamb came out cold so they reheated it in the microwave! Any decent restaurant would come up with a new one! I ordered a cheese, rocket and pine nut salad. It arrived with no pine nuts so when I flagged this with the waiter he looked at me like I was an idiot. He did check the menu and I was right but apparently they don't do the salad with pine nuts anymore!! Well change your menu then! We ended up getting 3 bottles of wine free + the dessert free which tasted and looked amazing I must say. Our group was in good spirits which was lucky because the rubbish service and incompetent staff could have so easily ruined our night! The head waiter did make as much effort to put right all the things that were wrong but surely these things shouldn't be wrong in the first place!! In the end what should have cost us £50 per head worked out to be £20.

Luckily we enjoyed the night but that's because we thought it was a one off. Having read the review here it's obvious that it's a shambles and I wouldn't return to eat here.

RUBBISH! we had the set menu - two courses for £30.... which amounted to 4 tiny scallops with some oil on to start. my main (pasta) was revolting and just tasted of oil. my friend's dish, the fish, was dry and came just with a very stingy salad. avoud this place for a meal at all costs - it's the biggest waste of money ever! the cocktails were ok, so maybe just go for drinks.

Appalling service, rude staff, insufficient numbers of staff. This place is fine for a cocktail but completely unacceptable for dinner. Do not eat here. Les Trois Garcons, Loungelover, Great Eastern Dining Rooms are all much much better in this area. Avoid!!!