The Albert, Primrose Hill

Myself and my friends ordered lunch here and having waited well over half an hour for our order and having politely asked if we would have to wait much longer, were presented with three platefuls of unappealing looking mess. Despite everything on the plate being cold, the Yorkshire puddings were burnt, the roast potatoes were uncooked and the vegetables raw. The beef was grey and impossible to cut - the entire meal was utterly inedible.

We told a member of staff that we were unable to eat what we had been served and were told that as she had only been working there for two days that she would get someone to come over. Several minutes later a stroppy Australian barmaid arrived at the table asking 'What's the problem' at which point we (very politely) explained that we were very disappointed with the food and that everything was cold. She responded with 'Shall I have it reheated for you?' as the majority of the food wasn't actually cooked we didn't think this would resolve our issues and replied with 'I think we'd rather a refund' Tutting and taking my plate away she said 'Ok YOU haven't eaten it' she turned to my friends and snapped 'But YOU have eaten half of yours' (they had barely touched their food) she then returned a while later and slammed my �12.50 on the table in front of me, took the other two full plates of food away telling my friends that the have a policy not to refund customers unless they don't actually get their food at all. One of my friends then asked if it would be possible to see the manager and after disappearing for a while the barmaid then called out across the bar to us that the Manager wouldn't be coming down to see us because 'She trusts me to deal with this with my own discretion so, even though I don't think you've been very nice to me - I'll refund YOU but not YOU because you ate some of yours' she then came over to the table and slammed another �12.50 down on the table before saying 'I suggest you split that between you' before storming off.

We had no apology at any point and the manager was clearly so unconcerned that she had dissatisfied customers in her pub that she couldn't even be arsed to deal with it herself - preferring to let a barmaid with an attitude problem be rude to paying customers.

An awful, awful place with appalling food, service and staff. Give it a massive swerve.

19 Apr 2009 20:21