The Dickens Inn, Tower Hill

I took my husband here in September for a birthday treat. We have lived in London for 15years and I really wanted to surprise him with the location, he'd never even heard of St Katherine's Dock. Yes, the location is amazing it's like being on holiday, however, do not eat in the Grill restaurant if you appreciate decent quality food. My husband had the fish selection to start, which was just palatable but the smoked salmon was cut too thick and quite unappetising. Not worth the �10 we paid. He then had the sirloin steak which had to be sent back twice, first it was overcooked and second time it was too tough to eat. The head waiter was very obliging and allowed my husband to change his order to yellow fin tuna, which was edible but not great. I had goats cheese tart with chorizo to start, this was OK but it was a cheap cheese and the chorizo had a big hard piece of gristle in which ended up in my mouth - yuk. I then had the barbary duck with dauphinoise potatoes, I left half the duck breast as it was too tough to eat and the potatoes were dry and unappetising. The cherries for the sauce had come out of a jar. I didn't send any of my food back as I didn't want to add to the already rather tense atmosphere. We were so disappointed that we didn't order desserts, we just wanted to leave. We love our food and have been to many great restaurants of different prices per head in London. Please by all means go here for a quick drink but my advice would be don't waste �70+ on poor quality food. To be fair the ingredients were so cheap and such poor quality that the chefs would have had a battle on their hands to send out anything decent. There are better places to eat very close by, the Indian restaurant Mala next door is very nice. Infact I would rather go to one of the chains in the dock than return here. I give a rating of 1 for our view of Tower Bridge and for the helpful staff.

1 Oct 2010 16:48