Corney & Barrow at Old Broad Street

Met up with an old uni friend Tazza for a spot of lunch in the city. As it was short notice she suggested the Corney & Barrow near her office. I cycled up there from the West End on a Boris bike which was fine except that finding a bike bay in the square mile is tricky. they're not as obvious as up in the West End. Anyway I got there finally a bit hot and bothered and ordered myself a lager shandy. Inside it's basically an upmarket All Bar one. A lot of clean lines and chrome, you do get table service but food and drink was slow coming, you'd get faster at a normal restaurant. Tazza had a beef sandwich which she liked. I was a bit non plussed by the menu so went for the burger with bacon and cheese. I asked for medium and got dried well done. It was a shame as the burger was good quality and very meaty. the chips were good though.

Half way through the meal we were looked after an extremely profesiional and friendly waiter who recommended a couple of glasses of wine for us to try. He was good and deserved to be working somewhere better than this. Even his effort with the wine was spoilt by the bar taking so long to get the order out to us. Not sure what it cost as Tazza paid but I don't think I would be in a hurry to head back. It had a nice enough atmosphere but more corporate than I'm used to. It does seem with the city that if you want anything half decent you have to pay top money. At least in the West End you can casual dine relatively inexpensively.
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david ginsberg - View all reviews by this user
5 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 5
Monday, July 11, 2011