The Freemasons Arms, Hampstead

Without doubt this pub has the worst service in London.

I hadn't been here for 5 years becasuse the service had been so abysmal the last time. Surely it would have improved in 5 years? Wrong. If anything it is even worse.

When we arrived at 5:30 on a Friday evening, there were only 4 other people waiting at the bar and it took 15 minutes for the 2 bar staff to finish serving 2 of them. Then they both had to ask "Who's next?". One of them tried to serve a girl next to me and she kindly said that I'd been there first. I asked for a pint of Guinness and a pint of Aspall's cider. Of course, she poured the Aspall's first. And, without even asking she shovelled half a pint of ice to the glass. When I said I didn't want ice she tutted and then spent 5 minutes trying to decant the cider she'd put in with the ice into another pint glass. She then poured the Guinness in one go, and put it in front of my friend with over an inch head on it. "I'll need to wait for that to settle and be topped up," said my friend, as I paid. "No!" said the barmaid, "That IS a pint." She then again asked "Who's next?" completely ignoring the poor girl next to us who should have been served next. After waiting 5 minutes for the Guinness to settle, with the barmaid continually glaring at us for doing so, and obvioulsy working up for an argument when we asked it to be topped up, we gave up and went to the garden.

It is like this pub is willfully trying to fail. The "garden" is made as "ungardendlike" as possible, where it used to be patchy, at least it had a bit of grasss. Now it is covered in gravel with paving stone paths littered with gravel that numerous girls in heels continuously skid and twist their ankles on.

And they hadn't even turned the light on in the "outside" toilets. I assume some gent complained about this as eventually they solved the problem by locking the Gents, although the pitch black Ladies was left open.

Dire. Avoid like the plague. This is one pub that you wouldn't care if it was razed to the ground and turned into a block of yuppie flats. It would at least then be slightly less annoying.

12 May 2008 11:28