Beach Blanket Babylon (Notting Hill)

all in all, the worst experience i have ever had in any restaurant, in any country.....ever. We pre booked a NYE dinner at £65 per head, after waiting 1hr 30mins and after several un-answered questions to waiters our lobster starters arrived, with no picks or crackers to eat them with...we were expected to use our fingers apparantly!! We had to wait 1hour for wine which was left behind a bar and we had to get up and pour ourselves.

We then had a 40minute wait between our starter and main, the main course (steak) were all overcooked and when we complained they did nothing. We, at this point, asked to see the manager. After a heated discussion he agreed to take £200 off the bill but this guesture did not come to fruition. We decided not to wait for dessert and went downstairs to the bar, the manager told us drinks were on the house due to the appaling service and food. We spent the evening in the bar, where a fight occured. It got very violent and was close to where we were standing. Glasses were smashed and the doormen seemed very unneccessarily hands on. The doormen then physically threw a small woman, in our party up against the doors. This caused quite a scene and we were all asked to leave, the doormen pushed us all out, not giving us time to retrieve coats from the cloakroom or pick up our handbags. They were left behind, containing our cards and cash.

Then worryingly, when we got home we discovered the card had been charged £218 by Beach Blanket Babylon 30mins after we had left.

I was shocked, disgusted and gobsmacked at the terrible service, food, staff and managemant.

If i could, i would score this venue less than zero. Obviously, i would not recomend or ever go there again
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Louise Kitcatt
0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Friday, January 01, 2010

Absolutely diabolical in terms of organisation and communication. I spent ages organising a company night out for Christmas, paying in advance, giving them spreadsheets of cocktails and drinks we wanted and the food....and it was a WASTE of time. The staff there had no clue what was going on and we waited 3 hours for canapes and the stuff I had pre ordered - quite clearly it hadn't been pre-ordered AT ALL. What's worse is I have complained in an explicit email requesting the sevrice charge back and the food charge and I have heard nothing so as well as delivering a bad sevrice on the night, they can't even be bothered to respond to even try and defend themselves and the manager on the night could only give me a refund on some of the food as he 'wasn't authorised' to give me any more off. So I clearly was only left with the option of emailing the next day to management. The venue is great, the staff and the function bookers quite clearly don't know what the hell's going on.
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0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Shocking! To be honest the other comments on here are spot on, it was like clockwork... 1 and a half hours til the starter turned up, cold! £45 a head, you must be joking, i laughed out loud when my main turned up, i needed a magnifying glass to see it!! The waiters, I mean you have to WAIT, for a very long time! Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of waiters doing absolutley nothing. And when you did get their attention they were very rude.

It is three days now since we ate there, and i am seething! I need to take a chill pill!

Merry Christmas to all – please avoid, we wish we read these reviews before we went!
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Andy
1 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 0
Monday, December 21, 2009

We seriously considered leaving half way through. Its like something from the 80's in terms of service, the staff, the food.

I did break with tradition and actually recommend this to my worst enemy.
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Ian Fuggle - View all reviews by this user
0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Monday, December 21, 2009

A group of four of us 'ate' here last weekend. It's a lovely place, but boy, have they got things wrong here. It was one of the worst dining experiences we have ever had in London.

The service was dreadfully slow. We had to wait an hour for our starters then another hour and twenty minutes for the main courses. By then we really had enough. The quality of the food was very poor. Two dishes had to be sent back because they were under-cooked. No acknowledgement, no apology. Nothing. They were not worth the prices they were charging. In short, it was a rip-off.

To cap it all, they got our bill wrong and we were charged for two bottles of wine and a couple of cocktails which we did not have. We insisted on taking off the 12.5% service charge too.

We were hoping to bring a works do here next year, but everyone should be warned: AVOID this restaurant! There are better places to eat than this dump!
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Greg
1 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Wednesday, December 16, 2009

the food was toxic - the service appaling - the place is a rip-off - avoid it!!
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ivan richardson
0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Shockingly bad. Food terrible. Service worse. One hour for starters to arrive. After another hour and ten minutes some sprouts appeared. We were set to walk out but the mains turned up. So we ate. It was awful. We wanted to stay and have some drinks as it was our Christmas party. So we went down stairs to the bar. We committed the heinous crime of taking our wine downstairs. Then two bouncers turned up and got very agressive. We were surprised as the entire staff seemed to have bene ignoring us all evening. We ended up not paying our £1100 bill. Only after lots of pushing and shoving. Give this place a very wide berth. It is rubbish. If you are by any chance reading this and you are going there tonight for dinner Ii suggest KFC or McD's instead. The food will be better.
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Mark Pate
1 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 0
Friday, December 11, 2009

Last night some colleagues and I went for a few drinks at Beach Blanket Babylon. We ordered cocktails, which were great. However, it was impossible to order another round. No one checked up on us after we were initially served. One of the group went up to the bar to ask someone to come over to us to take our order. But this never happened. They were all to busy playing with the flowers or cutlery. By this point we were fed up so decided to leave. I then went over to ask for the bill and was completely ignored. Therefore I had to raise my voice to ask for the bill, just to be heard. Eventually, someone came over. When paying, we were asked if we wanted to add a tip (which we probably should have said no to). However, we added 10% only to find out that they had already added 12% before that.

Needless to say, we will not be going back.
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Sally
0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Thursday, December 10, 2009

Standard menu given despite prebooking a christmas menu and being forced to pay a deposit in advance. Waited 1 and 1/2 hours for the mains to arrive.

Many of the items on the menu not available.

Cocky arrogant waiter with no manners or customer service.

Decor - nice. Food - ok. Price - ok. Service - awful. Awful Awful place. Never again.
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4 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 5
Sunday, December 06, 2009

Two words. AWFUL FOOD.
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Peter
3 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 2
Saturday, December 05, 2009