Anglesea Arms

Bland food, really disappointing...
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2 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 1
Wednesday, January 23, 2013

It is expensive but OK - not the best gastro in the area but not the worst either. The previous review complaining about the lack of fish knives at a gastro pub (in the year 2011) gave me a laugh.
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Roy Grainger
7 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 5
Wednesday, September 07, 2011

We had dinner at The Anglesea Arms on Saturday night, and I feel compelled to write this review, because we feel like we were robbed.

Anyone in this part of West London will know that there is a whole host of gastropubs (very 90s term, but apt enough) to choose from. Some of them are really good. The Duke of Sussex in Chiswick is definitely the pick of the bunch, followed by the Carpenter’s Arms and then the Princess Victoria (just my/my husband’s opinion – we’ve eaten at all of them a lot so feel able to make this judgment).

Despite living in W12 for two years, we’d never been to the Anglesea Arms, but after Saturday's experience, I can't see us going back. I can only urge readers of this site to believe what they have heard about the service (not interested – no ‘how is your meal?’ type thing going on here) and the food (utterly, mind-boggingly overpriced, and poorly-executed).

When we arrived, a nice enough hostess remembered me calling ahead to see if they had tables (she had said that there would be) and told us to have a drink at the bar. Our table was almost ready and she would come and get us when we could go through to the dining room. As it was, we ordered drinks and were then approached by a different member of staff who gave us a table to eat in the main pub bit. Which was fine, but a bit odd that we never saw this woman again, and our other table swiftly forgotten about.

We looked at the menus and were pretty shocked at the prices. Basically, there were five main course options, and none cheaper than £15 each. Which is steep, and steeper still when you have to pay extra for the carb component of your meal. As you have to here. The only dish that really appealed to us was the plaice, so we both chose that, the bonus being that it came with its own potatoes (hurray!).

We ordered some bread while we waited. In an establishment like this, surely the bread ought to be complementary? Well, no. It’s £1 for a basket. Fair enough if it’s great. However, it was four small slices of your average sourdough but what astounded us was the ‘butter’, clearly margarine (nasty man-made fatty aftertaste) which arrived covered in crumbs.

What warranted the mark up on the plaice I’ll never know. It came surrounded by a pretty watery crab bisque, and accompanied by gritty leeks and two insipid boiled potatoes (supposedly Ratte, but I suspect they were not). Another ill-thought out element was no fish knife for either of us, which meant it was impossible to eat the meal normally when every mouthful was a case of dodge the fish bone.

If it had been earlier in the evening – and if there had been something else we wanted to eat on the menu – we would have sent these utterly inadequate plates of food back. We didn’t, and we ended up with a bill for £60 for two main courses, two pints of Guinness, a Kir and a glass of wine. Oh, and we were overcharged for extra stuff when we paid, which had to be refunded.

I doubt my comments will have an impact on the locals who appear to frequent this place – I imagine that they’re very loyal to this cosy little Brackenbury pub – but, please: if you haven’t been before, don’t bother. We eat out a lot and at both high/low end places, but this pub does not deliver in the food department. And I can only reiterate that the three pubs mentioned above give you so much more value for money. The Anglesea Arms should also look to Paradise in Kensal Green and The Mall Tavern in Notting Hill, where the kitchens are turning out interesting, well-judged and great value cooking.

I wish we’d gone to Abu Zaad instead. Either that or done the thing where you just pay what you feel the meal is worth, but I am not brave enough!
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whipped
5 Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 3
Monday, November 01, 2010