Spread Eagle

very good food and good value for money for good quality fish and meat they have,i had tuna as a starter which was very fresh and tasty which is what i would expect if i pay 10 £ for a starter then my partner had scallops again very well cooked and fresh ,i had beef as a main course and my partner had the cod good portions and good cooking well done job at sread eagle. even though they did not have the wine we requested service was good too, i happily paid the service charge for them
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steve
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Monday, July 07, 2008

For some reason I've never been to this place, despite eating out in Greenwich quite a lot. The food was pretty unpretentious French tarted up a bit. At £29 the three course menu was pretty good value with each dish doing well, particularly my steak main.
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Tony Cavaldoro
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Monday, April 14, 2008

Took my Mum here for her birthday, party of 6, and had a lovely table upstairs. Service, ambience, food and wine were superb. A very fine restaurant that made you feel entirely comfortable. Had the scallops to start and they were delicious, easily the tastiest I have had in a long time. Cod for mains and again, stunning. Finished with the cheese selection which was the perfect end to a wonderful meal. Will be coming here again and again.
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Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Monday, March 31, 2008

This was the best food i've ever eaten at a restaurant. the mussels for the starter were fantastic and I have never tasted better cod in my love. this a solid, well styled quintessential Englich restaurant, nice ambience, well dressed staff, heavy linen, open fires. I am very surprised to hear about some of the negative reviews below because I think this place on the night I ate was just incredible.

Piers G
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Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 6
Monday, March 17, 2008

I was taken to the Spread Eagle for my birthday last Friday and I was not disappointed!

Although I didn’t enjoy my starter I put that down to my wrong choice rather than the quality of the food. My partner had snails and totally raved about them!

Both our main courses were superb! (rack of lamb and beef!)

Dessert… Crème Brulee… need I say more!

All of the staff were really lovely and we had no complaints at all. Our wine and water glasses were kept topped up!

We were not rushed at all.

The décor is really nice and felt so welcoming, the only real downside I’m afraid is that once the music starts downstairs in the wine bar you can hear it….. but that was one minor thing that we would not let spoil our night!!
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Lizzie
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 9
Monday, February 18, 2008

I visited this restaurant before the refurb and found the original charming and quaint decoratively and the food was outstanding. I last visited this place just after the refurb and found the food served in that "piled-up" way, which I find pretentious and off-putting, I thought the standard was around gastro-pub quality and remarked that the food appeared to have been been simply pre-cooked heated up and served on this particular Sunday lunchtime..

The noise levels from the less mannered tables was amplified by the acoustics of the newly opened-up restaurant (that's why the old restaurant was better in this respect, it had little cubby-holes and partitions) and found ourselves having to complain to other tables about the noise levels. Why should I have to complain about the noise, why don't restaurant staff quieten these tables down? I simply won't leave a tip regardless if I have to endure other diners bad manners..

I was assured that they had just opened and were going to improve all round. I shall be revisiting soon (around 3 years later, and will report, that is, if we should give it another chance??
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David Butterworth
Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 5
Monday, February 11, 2008

Every time I go here it is fantastic. Great atmosphere, great staff and wonderful food. If this were in Central London it would have Michelin stars by now. A great refit, really really well done.
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Sharkey77
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Friday, January 04, 2008

I dined there last week with a party of five. The rooms are nicely decorated, the walls covered with a great collection of Greenwich paintings and sketches. When most of the tables are seated, it gets rather loud, making conversation a bit difficult, but the overall atmosphere of the place is pleasant and comfortable. I found it unusual, though, for a restaurant in the £ 30 range that first thing i saw when entering was an obviously drunk person in the bar sleeping with his head on the table (or did they hire him for authenticity?)

The service deteriorated steadily, starting with waiters spreading the napkins on our laps and ending with us asking if we could order desserts now and asking again fifteen minutes later for the whereabouts of our desserts. Admittedly by that time the restaurant was almost fully seated. Also, it doesn’t give credit to the service when orders for coffee are taken together with orders for desserts and the coffee is served before the dessert.

The wine list is good, mostly French wines, some from Italy and a few from overseas (but no German wines), starting from about £ 15 per bottle. We had a St. Emilion for £ 35 that was excellent.

There is a seven course degustation menu for £ 42, all other dishes are £ 27 for two courses, £ 31 for three courses. My starter, tuna tartare with mango and coriander, was a bit too chilled, but deliciously fresh and tasty.

As main course i had rib eye steak accompanied by rather nondescript mash potatoes. The steak was not quite au point and served in slices a bit too thick to be eaten comfortably. Both combined gave the impression of a certain toughness. I considered shortly to let it go back - after reading the last review I’m glad I didn’t. My companions had better luck - I heard no complaints about their roasted ducks.

The desserts seem to be composed not so much for outstanding taste but to let the description in the menu sound as impressive as possible.

All in all, it was a mixed experience. The place and the food are not bad, but in my opinion they don’t meet the standards that can be expected in this price class.
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Visitor from the continent
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 4
Monday, December 24, 2007

Last week I told someone calling himself the 'director' of this restaurant that the lunch I'd just been served there was the worst I'd ever had but I still feel the need to warn the rest of world about this bloody awful excuse for a restaurant. I ought to declare a bias: I used to love the place, did some proper wooing in the little snugs on the ground floor, had some great birthday bashes in the back room and saw in the New Year more than once there. I loved the dark wood, the real fire, the fact that the bread and butter tasted like it had been teleported in directly from Normandy, that the menu was unpretentious - simple bistro food done properly. Since the place was taken over by some chain and 'done over' by Laurence Llewellyn Bowen I somehow haven't been able to get past the front door.

Last week I'd arranged to meet friends and the Rivington but it was shut. They arrived before me and decided to go straight to the Spread Eagle, and when I found them sipping champagne in the bar I knew we were staying, and by the second glass of fizz we were all enthusiastically taking in the huge collection of wonderful paintings of Greenwich through the ages that cover the walls (Laurence hasn’t done a bad job).

We were three of only five diners that lunchtime so it seemed safe to assume that we would be experiencing the kitchen at its best, so I risked the more expensive of the set menus, ordering poached foie gras with ox tail ravioli - admittedly a bit of a gamble, and roast duck - which let's be honest here, is less complicated to prepare than bacon.

Starter was fine. Needed something. Couldn’t help feeling that the dish had been put together to sound impressive on paper rather than to be good to eat. Bit more thought and it might have been quite special. As it was it seemed sort of unfinished.

Main course. Here we go. Roast duck. Cold. Not cold enough to chill your drink but cold like food you cooked ten minutes ago and then left on a cold plate, somewhere cold. But it was cold outside and I was very hungry from my walk over the heath so I persevered. But twenty seven quid, I'm thinking, and they put it on a cold plate! And it's almost grey, and the fat is thick and white and rubbery. I'm having to trim off every bit, and that breaks my heart because the fat is half the point. On top of the vegetables (piled in a little tower, of course) is a square of duck breast of a different kind: chinese style, dark, tasty meat covered in gorgeous dark brown fat that must have been rendered before cooking. I take a bite of that and love it - but I'm sending it back because on the whole, it's a p*ss-take for the money they're charging. My friends say they wouldn't be embarrassed if I sent it back. I look up, waiting for the obligatory 'is everything all right with your meal' visit that never comes. Two long minutes later I go to find one of the staff - who outnumber us guests, let's not forget, and tell him that the overcooked meat and undercooked fat aren't the real problem: I'm sending this back because it's cold. Ten long minutes later the exact same dish is back, only they've taken the away the remains of the nice, chinesey duck, trimmed the fat off the duck breast slices, cooked the last traces of pink out of them, and smothered the sad, grey remaining bits of meat some gravy that didn't feature first time round. I say to the waiter: I wanted hot, roast duck, cooked properly; what's this? He is immediatley cowed but has a brave stab at pretending that this is what I asked for, then gives me some slightly breathless waffle about their house rules for the preparation of duck, as they've served me rubbish food because their standards are so HIGH! When asked if he expects me to pay for this, he assures me obsequiously that I will not be charged DOUBLE! I tell him to take it away and to make sure it doesn’t appear on the bill. He comes back offering me another main course on the house but I decline; I really don't want to eat anything that comes from that kitchen. I mean, none of them know what roast duck is supposed to look like. Do they actually employ chefs, I wonder, or are the waiters following written instructions? When my friends are ready for pud, I order cheese, which the kitchen manages to get onto the plate without accidentally boiling it or covering it in custard, I calm down, and eventually we ask for the bill.

It gets worse. Not only have they not offered to take anything off the bill but they've charged me the full £27, despite letting me go hungry – and included service! After we’re ignored for another five minutes I go find a waitress, point out that I sent back my main course and ask her to correct the bill. No hint of an apology, either for the bad food or the attempt to rip me off. When I come back from the gents she’s barring my way back to my chair and I have to ask her to step aside so I can sit down. She hasn’t changed the bill and is arguing that because the menu says two courses for £27 and I’ve had two courses, she’s got me bang to rights. And I mean arguing. I tell her that the menu implies that one of those courses is a main course. She walks off and we don’t know if it’s over or not. Five minutes later I find her again and ask her to make up a bill for my friends; we’d agreed that they’d go on to somewhere less horrible for a drink and I’d catch up with them. Instead she comes back to the table with a bill charging me £15 that she has 'agreed' with the director. Thhe way she implies that like her I am bound by the authority of the director, and still fails to offer any sort of empathy, never mind apology, prompts me to ask to speak to him. More minutes later and she thrusts a phone at me and the director wants to know why I won’t pay my bill. It’s a relief to speak to someone who isn’t either intimidated by my complaint or trying to intimidate me, and I describe to the director the worst lunch I’ve ever had. He says he had no idea, all he’d been told was that I’d refused to pay my bill - which makes me wonder why he apparently agreed to knock off that first £12, but I don’t ask. He apologises and says that my meal is on the house. When the final bill comes I see that they’ve kept their commitment to over-promising and under-delivering right to the bitter end: they charged for the cheese course despite promising that my meal would be free. I didn't argue any further: freedom beckoned!
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Greenwich regular
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 1
Saturday, December 15, 2007

absolutely marvellous food - and at £40 for a seven-course tasting menu, great value too... the atmosphere and decor really match the quality of the food as well. A great restaurant that i would recommend to anyone.
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jeremy johnson - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 7
Friday, December 14, 2007