The Mitre, Holland Park

After being recommended The Mitre by somebody (whom I have now lost all trust for) as a decent place to grab some good grub and a pint on a Sunday afternoon - I have to say I was utterly appalled by what we received.

The short, rude, little bald man//hobbit who I can only assume was the 'Governor' sat us down to our RESERVED table (reserved as it was a friends birthday - so was a bit of a special occasion), only for him to forcefully 'suggest' that we didn't split the bill, but that we "sort it out afterwards to save [him] the hassle".

We didn't have a problem with this at the time as we were sure the food and service was going to be good. We were wrong.

After waiting for over an hour for our food, with ZERO attempt from him to even acknowledge that we�d been waiting so long, the food started to arrive. I say STARTED because it took another half an hour for ALL of the meals to arrive at the table, with the final meals arriving well after the first person had finished theirs.

This is bad enough, but still he didn't even acknowledge us. No apology. Nothing.

In fairness the food was OKAY, apart from one - the Roast Beef; it was like eating an old handbag stuffed with the excess fat from Fern Britton's thighs.

When we spoke of our disappointment to said Hobbit, he was disinterested at best - still no apology.

We asked for the bill � service was included.

There was no way were paying for 'service' which simply was non-existent. When we made 'Frodo' aware of this, his reply was shocking - "I didn't expect you too anyways! Youngsters never tip", whilst walking off with our money.

First off we're not youngsters, we all have professional jobs are would be MORE than happy to tip had the service been good. We may have been youngsters in his eyes simply as we hadn't quite required the need to start dying our beards yet, as he clearly had.

I'm not sure if this is a common hobbit trait or not, I'll look into it...

Avoid this horrible little man, and his �shire� at all costs!

17 Jun 2009 11:11