The Green Room

After reading various reviews on this website, I felt the green room would be an ideal venue to take my wife to on valentines day....how wrong I was! After being charged an extortionate amount for a very basic set menu with "a complimentary glass of fizz"...how laughable when the set menu was £45 per head! The service was incredibely poor, so much so that we were forgotten about on numerous occassions, to the point that once I even had to venture upstairs to request that someone take our order as we seemed to be served by everyone barring the chef and that obviously added to all the confusion and lack of attention we received.

The food was average...nothing more and the portions were small, and after the poor service, we could not help but feel that this restaurant had fallen into the same trap as many others and put profit before their customers. Even after being pleasent throughout as I did not wish for anyone to ruin my night with my wonderful wife, we did not even get a nice friendly chat to excuse the confusion, which was totally unacceptable. On any other night, I would have simply refused to pay the service charge but considering the evening, I again felt I did not want to be annoyed further by having to explain my reasons behind it, so I paid the bill outright and made my way out of the dungeon they had placed us in...with little other space than the gap for the whole restaurant to constantly walk through to the small unisex toilet near our tables. On our way out, we found two couples refusing to pay the service charge, and they were seated in the main restaurant.....incredible! Never again will I enter this establishment for the simple reason, that we are willing and understand that we will pay a higher premium for V Day, but to totally neglect your customers and quite honestly think we are stupid enough to accept it, is an amazingly arrogant mistake to make.
View/Add comments (1)

Zac
2 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Wednesday, February 25, 2009

I really enjoyed this place! It was quiet (albeit mid-week) and tastefully decorated, which is always a good start. The a la carte menu looked delicious but we decided to opt for the set menu, which was very reasonably priced (£15 for two courses, £20 or so for three). The waiter was very friendly and provided us with some delicious olive bread straight after taking our order, which was very welcome as I was starving. It was also a peasant change to have it served with balsamic vinegar and olive oil rather than butter. To start with my friend and I had the goats cheese souffle, which was suitably creamy yet light, and accompanied by some very scrumptious garlic bread. I followed it up with some very basic penne pasta with a ragu-ey like sauce, which was complimented nicely by fresh basil leaves and some mature pecorino cheese. Very tasty despite its simplicity, so no complaints there. The dessert raspberry cheesecake I was less impressed by, but mainly because I am extremely fussy about my cheesecakes and prefer them plain (sans coulis or any silly toppings) and baked rather than refrigerated, and this cheesecake did not reach my standards on either count. However, my friend's rhubard crumble looked and smelt delicious!

I would definitely recommend this place if you are in the area and are looking for somewhere nice and well-priced. I shall certainly return whenever in Hampstead!
Comment on this reader review

ITM - View all reviews by this user
9 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 10
Tuesday, February 10, 2009