The Commissary, Hoxton

The Commissary’ (Islington N1) had been recommended by a few people over some period of time so we decided to give it a go. Upon entering, my initial thoughts were really quite hopeful with regard to the layout, outside space, etc – although, I was rather disturbed by the lack of hungry folk, at what was the height of the lunchtime trade, in an area that is as equally jam packed with residential units as well as commercial workplaces, an extremely vibrant place – it wasn’t very long before I found out the reason(s) for this lack of custom.

We sat down on one of the outside tables, and sat some more, and sat some more (roughly 10 mins, give or take) – eventually one of us had to go inside and ask to be served. The menu finally arrived, I have to say it wasn’t worth the wait – it was very poor indeed – to say it was sparsely populated would be too generous so I won’t – it was awfully dull and miniature, actually. The first waitress was ever so sweet but unfortunately didn’t have a great grasp of the English language and it was hard-work trying to get through to her – she explained it was her first day, etc so we were totally happy to give her time and be completely tolerant of these small drawbacks. We ordered some bread, olives and olive oil to share as a starter (the dreary couple of other first course choices on the menu didn’t exactly fill us with delight), my friend ordered the Salmon and I, the Lamb Kofte as main courses. Another 5 mins elapsed before the complimentary bread arrived; when it did it was immediately followed by two plates of bread and olives and oil – so at this point we had lots and lots of bread(too much bread, bread galore!) – it was like the feeding of the five thousand! We sent one said bread / oil starters back (allow here that we only ordered one of these), the waitress protested and was utterly surly, saying we had ordered two – anyway, she finally agreed to take the offending and unwanted plate away and that’s where the matter should have had an end.

At this point a second waitress storms over to the table with the already sent back starter and declares to us and the other few diners (by this I mean she was unnecessarily loud) that we did order two starters and we must take it – she was surly, barren of any politeness whatsoever and couldn’t articulate herself in any coherent way to be honest – I explained we did not want it and that I would not have sent it back if I did. Off she went. Suddenly a short little guy, with (obviously (see later)) new girlfriend screams over ‘there’s no need to be rude maaate’ – I retorted that I had not been rude – the waitress had in fact been incredibly rude and that I simply put what I’d said to her in a way that she’d understand i.e.’ I WOULD NOT HAVE SENT IT BACK, IF I HAD WANTED IT’ – this guy kept coming back with accusations of rudeness, etc at which point I ask him, in a very polite way, to mind his own business, that I would like to eat my lunch in peace – he jumps up, declaring that he’s the owner and that we’re to get out of his restaurant immediately. He then shouts ‘hold on, I’ll sort this out’ and runs off into the restaurant – my friend and I haven’t’ really taken much notice of him and carry on with our conversation – he crawls back out to where we are sitting and carry’s on arguing, right about now I realise that he is not the owner – perhaps the owners overweight son (never a good mix in the food and drink trade to give the mouthy kid any kind of power) who somehow thinks he’s going to be irresistible in this ‘big man’ mode to his lady friend (who, by the way, is sitting there all this time so utterly embarrassed by his behaviour).

Anyway, we got up and walked out. I have since found out that he was definitely not the owner from some neighbours of mine – the owners are middle aged and not at all aggressive, apparently they are lovely people who will be very upset when they read this. This all happened about 3 hours ago – I have spoken to 5 people already about what happened, 3 of them live alongside this place and use it all the time – such a shame to have been treated so appallingly. I have to say in all the years I have lived and ate in Islington (born here), I have never experienced anything quite like it, this guy was outrageously aggressive – my friend was really quite terrified – I will never go back again and would urge the real owners to get rid of the dead meat in their outfit – and I’m sorry but if that be family members, well then so be it.

30 Jul 2007 18:02