Beach Blanket Babylon Shoreditch

Being a restaurateur myself, i wanted to try this new venue. At first, I was very impressed by the entrance and deco of the place. There is a nice atmosphere there.

We sat down for diner and from then, it was like the ABC of service gone wrong. The cutlery, glasses and napkins were dirty and the cruets full of tomato sauce. The waiter was not understanding our english and obviously the order went wrong. My steak was not cooked as requested and the fries never arrived. When asked, we were told that they run out of fries (how can you??).

Then when we finished our mains, the table was cleared and nothing else happened. I was quiet keen to have a look at the dessert menu but after 10 minutes of waiting, i just asked for the bill. When leaving, no one said good bye as the manager was too busy eating with his friend at one table.

What a shame it is and it shows that there is no management and no standards in this place.

Will obviously never come back.
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Olivier Lavigne
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 0
Monday, March 24, 2008

IF you go out to eat , isn't the least you expect is to be understood by the staff? After all i wasn't speaking Swahili.The order was completely messed up and there was not an ounce of regret from the management. It really irks me that places like this gets away with rude service and disgusting food. Shouldn't there be a department to uphold the standards of the catering industry? Surely ripping clients off is a crime.Well its murder having to eat whats on offer.

The cocktails fare no better.Out of curiousity we ventured down to the basement bar . It was really hot and stuffy and the same chaos ensued here. Staff who has not the slightest inkling about coctails. One drink was enough to drown our curiousity and we could wait to leave.
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Jennifer
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Thursday, February 07, 2008

Upon arrival you are greeted by a stunning cocktail bar amidst beautiful decor and lighting to perfection. Seating wasn't a problem as the confident and somewhat 'shorditch' type staff-member showed us to our own little leather booth. Perfect. Everything was going well and we were in store for a rather impressive evening. Unfortunately, that's as far as our 'impressive' evening went.

Our waitress was slow, unsure and lacked confidence in the most profound way possible. She returned on 3 occasions to tell me the wine I had ordered was not in stock and when I finally deciding on a particular bottle she returned with the wrong one. Not a great start.

Onto ordering the mains and the lamb sounded great. But my girlfriend had to settle for the salmon as they didn't have lamb. So why is it on the menu? The bread was lovely, but how do you go wrong with that? Starters were not overly impressive for their price but I couldn't complain. The mains were cooked well but for their price far short of value.

Basically, the evening had the potential to be lovely, but after spending cash on overpriced starters and mains I could help but want to get out of there a little quicker than I had arrived. I left last night dissatisfied. The only thing this place has going for it is a nice atmosphere, which lets be honest, isn’t really the best part of a dining experience.
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Rylie
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 2
Monday, February 04, 2008

Its been a long time since i have been annoyed like this. This place must have the most inadequately trained staff in the whole of london. I am usually forgiving but i am unable to tolerate rudeness and being treated as a fool. After a marathon session of trying to order from a fairly simplistic menu, the waiter managed to get the order wrong. It would have been bearable if we didn't have to wait ages for the food to arrive. The place was quiet and the staff offered no explaination . All our queries are answered by a shrug. There seems to be a lack of professionalism here. To add insult to injury the food was barely edible. On going onto the internet to write this review i discovered that there were numerous bad reviews on the Metro,London Papers,Time Out etc. Shame i didn't bother to check the reviews first. Anyways, once bitten twice shy.If only they were nice and also i i didn't feel so ripped off by the prices they charge. Won't be reccomending this place.
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Terry
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Friday, February 01, 2008

This place is brilliant!

Great food. My Tortellini was excellent. Staff were helpful and friendly.

The chocolate brownie and the trifle for dessert were fantastic.

Finally somewhere decent to go in Shoreditch!

Well done guys. Keep it up!!!
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Stuart Heath
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 10
Friday, January 25, 2008

I went here last night with a friend. Our overall impresion is that it's somewhat like Annex 3 in style, and slightly cheaper in cost (cocktails are £7.90 vs £8, and the cheapest bottle of wine is £17 vs £20); however, if anything, i'd say the cocktails here were slightly better. Very very strong, very well made, and very plesant. The ambience, even for a Wed night was pleasant, though not very busy. However.... We then decided we should get some food, and this is where the problems started. About 10 mins after having given our food order, we were suddenly told we couldn't eat around the bar, so were forced to move to a table - not something that would ordinarily bother me, but there was clearly a complete lack of communication, as we were then approached by a waiter who asked for our order, including wine - he never came back to find out what wine we wanted.. I had ordered a main Tortellini, and my friend, who was not hungry, ordered a couple of side dishes. I'm astonished to say they managed to mess up something simple like pasta. The pasta was so al dente it tasted like it might once have been introduced to boiling water at a cocktail party, but had certainly never had the opporunity to become intimate with it, and the muchrooms and sides were so covered in salt, i genuinely feared a heart-attack on my walk home.. Also, and this is only a minor gripe, they missed something off the order, and the dish the pasta came in was shaped like an ash-tray, thereby making it impossible to rest a knife and fork on. It's funny that all the critics reviews i've read have said that the burger is the best thing on the menu - in the time we were there, every other dish that came out of the kitchen was a burger. Maybe they should consider revising the menu to just have the burger on.. One last thing, please do no hire models as waiters. Yes they're very attractive, but they don't know a thing about serving food!
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Digital Goldfish
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 1
Thursday, January 24, 2008

Struggling to find somewhere where we could eat, drink, mingle and listen to some loungy funky music, we stumbled across BBB on the way to West End.....On entering we thought wow ! It was like a large version of Lounge Lovers which funny enough was directly behind the venue. Anyway I cannot understand why someone has moaned about the place below because the cocktails were awesome; the staff was genuinely pleasant except the doorman who was a miserable so and so. The staff were really accommodating and went out of their way to get us a table and look after us. We felt a little bit like VIP's as they couldn’t find a place for us at the bar, so they let us in round the VIP area to drink the lush cocktails. I am usually very critical about bars and restaurants as they tend to just want to fleece you and get you out the door. The staff are usually Eastern European with Attitude too. The staff were really helpful and the food although not extensive was really quite good. We will definitely make this place a regular especially as the atmosphere was so good and the music was good old funky house, 70's etc. And before you ask I’m not a staff member writing this. I usually write about venues as I believe there are many people like me who genuinely get stuck for a place to go on a Saturday night. Hope this helps
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Mike Panteli
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 8
Sunday, January 13, 2008

I have to say after seeing all the reviews of Beach Blanket Babylon Shoreditch I was a bit pensive about meeting some friends here for dinner. However, I have to say I was pleasently suprised!

The cocktails are some of the best I've ever drunk, and the staff were pleasent and helpful. The decor is amazing, and I really felt like I was somewhere special. The food took a while to arrive, but when it did it was worth the wait - rich Argentinian steak and perfectly moist seabass. I was slightly dissappointed with the lack of coffee on offer, but we jnust ordered two more cocktails and then went downstairs to carry on drinking!
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Tina
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 6
Friday, January 04, 2008

Terrible service, shocking attitude. Went for dinner for 2 last week: ordered bottle of wine, told it was not available; ordered another bottle, also not available; third time lucky (decided against the £50 bottle that was recommeded). Asked for tap water three times; finally, a bottle of still water arrived! Food was average at best.

This week, went for a drink downstairs with a group of friends; waited to be served for 30 minutes; lights came on, bar shut, no drink. Complained to unresponsive bar staff; asked to speak to manager; whereupon the bouncers were summoned and my party was ejected from the premises. And incidentally, bouncer in silly hat overheard outside saying "If I had nothing better to do, I would beat the xxxx out of him". Perhaps patrons of the Notting Hill branch are used to this kind of thing, but out East, things are different.. If you prefer to be treated with respect, this place is best avoided. Shoreditch has many fine establishments, sadly, this is not one of them.
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TD
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Saturday, December 29, 2007

I can forgive the bad service and put up with the below average food but the arrogance of the management is unacceptable. I wanted to be fair and give them another chance but from reading the reviews for their other venue I gathered its the norm for them.Shoreditch is not full of tourist who can be conned.Its obvious that they are just cashing on the success of their Shoreditch neighbours.

The decor is reminiscent of the nearby Shoreditch House and Lounge Lover.We should not be supporting plagarism.
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Rita
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 1
Wednesday, December 26, 2007