Wallace & Co

Long time no review! Big Matt has moved house so the Notting Hill, Ealing nights out are no longer so easy. However he can get a pretty fast train to Putney and that works well for me as well so we met up last night for drinks and food. It's been years since I have been out around here so I was keen to see what was on offer. After passing a very very empty tapas bar we happened upon Wallace and Co. The menu looked nice enough so we popped in and were shown to a booth table by the friendly manager. It's a nice enough room though quite bare, I think the design and layout are geared to the daytime trade but I think with a bit more effort they could give it a bit more of a bistro feel for the evening. There were some nice options on the menu so I went for the braised lamb shoulder following a recommendation from the manager and Big Matt had the duck leg confit. We skipped starters but ordered some bread and dripping.

The bread and dripping arrived though I wasn't a big fan, the bread was excellent but the dripping just tasted like congealed fat. Perhaps they should have served it warmer. Luckily my bottle of Adnam's got rid of the taste. The mains took a while to arrive though the manager was apologetic as their was a large group to cater for. I think one of the problems in here is though some dishes come from the kitchen others come from the deli counter which can lead to delays when putting together the service for the table. Anyway when our mains came they were very nice. Big Matt loved his duck leg which looked lovely and my lamb and beans were very tasty. Suprisingly my big disapointment was our side of veg, in the menu it said it would be enough for two. What we good was some decent cauliflower cheese, a couple of carrots and some overcooked broccoli. I was expecting a lot more quantity and quality bearing in mind this place is owned by a greengrocer.

The bill came to just over £20 each which I thought was fair. It's not expensive for the food you are getting though I was expecting better from the veg. The service was very friendly though I did feel they were struggling slightly. There does seem to be some work in progress here. I think it is only a couple of steps away from being a very good all day eatery. I'd be happy to try it again possibly day time as I think with the outside seating and big glass frontage it could be a very pleasant spot
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david ginsberg - View all reviews by this user
7 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 8
Thursday, November 10, 2011

Third time lucky.. Thats the last chance.

Having forgotten that Putney Station doesnt open for breakfast, my GF and I continued along Upper richmond road to get some brekky pre gym and decided Wallace and co would get one final chance to change our view that its a pretty poor place to eat. It sadly disapointed.

£30.00 got us; Two cappuccino's. How hard can it be to get a decent cup of coffee? Very apparently. Cold cups and a quarter coffee, 3/4 froth. Bad start.

Bowl of 'fruit salad with granola'. Fruit was fine, yoghurt good but just muesli sprinkled on top, no honey. £6. Average at best.

Eggs benedict x 2. One with ham, one changed for salmon (which was very tricky to arrange somehow). The ham version was cold, looked like packet ham and the hollanaise has conjealed to a wobbly, cold, custard looking object.

My salmon one was again cold, the egg when burst was full of water and frankly was not pleasant and required fast eating to get through the dish.

The only solid item - two apple juices from a bottle.

So, all in all, this place continued our thoughts that it lives on reputation of Gregg Wallace. If he were to be served this level of food on the tele, he would be less than impressed. Particularly given the price.

Saving grace was the service - very polite, friendly and efficient.

No more chances.
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MH
5 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 3
Saturday, March 19, 2011

Having received vouchers for a Christmas present, my wife and I were looking forward to an evening at Wallace & Co. We booked a table for Saturday night but were suprised that there were only 3 or 4 other tables with diners. We were even more suprised when 2 new diners were seated a foot from us on an adjacent table for two. This is not normally a problem in a buzzing restaurant, however in an empty, quiet, restaurant it does not make for relaxed conversation. I ordered bubble and squeek with a stilton glaze, this was nice however I felt it required some sweetness to balance the dish, when I asked for chutney which I had seen elsewhere on the menu and in the cold cabinet I thought i'd asked for something they'd never heard of. It would have been nice if the poached egg were not hard boiled, however this was probably something to do with the hour or more it took to reach our table. The staff apologised for forgetting our order and we received complimentary desserts. The excessive wait ruined my enjoyment of the experience and I decided that I would not pay to return. However due to the apologetic savings we still had some vouchers left and decided to chance our luck with lunch a few weeks later. This time we brought our 2 young sons. The very attentive waitress's provided a false hope of speedy service this time, although being asked if we were ready to order twice even though I was doing my best not to look up from the menu I was studying. Our sons pasta and a bowl of chips arrived, again we waited and waited, eventually our hand crafted baguettes arrived too late to eat with the chips or with our first drinks. Luckily my wife had ordered another coffee which offset the very cold crayfish filling. Having left half of this tasteless baguette, we ordered a piece of carrot cake to enjoy with the rest of her coffee, of course it took 20 mins for someone to cut a slice of cake and so my wife had to order a third coffee. Luckily this one was offered complimentary, not because of our long waits but because my wife left most of her baguette. This coffee then didn't arrive until the cake had been eaten. With trwo kids reaching the end of their patience, another very dissapointing visit was confirmed.

I can only hope for Mr Wallace's sake, he reads some of these reviews, talks to a few of his mates about cooking and service or we will soon have another vacant eaterie in Putney.
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PERKY MIKE
4 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 6
Sunday, February 06, 2011

Had dinner at Gregg's Putney restaurant last night, they have an amazing £10 deal for two courses, starter of chicken livers with bacon was great followed by an amazing whiting with a herb crust, my partner had the beef cobbler which was just as tasty. We managed to share a bread and butter oudding with custard as a dessert which was equally pleasing.

The service was relaxed yet attentive, overall would definately go back for a cheap yet fresh and tasty dinner.
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Lee Patterson
8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 10
Thursday, January 20, 2011

Very disapointing and rather embrassing. My starter was the crayfish cocktail but sadly the sauce was so runny it was all at the bottom of my glass. I wish I had had the pate as this was very good.The steak was the only real choice for me from a most bizzare menu for my main course. It came overcooked the first time and once it had been sent back, the second time I felt I was eating whale blubber - disgusting. The bearnaise sauce tasted very strange and was discarded - thankfully it had come in its own pot. The veg were so overcooked I thought they had done it for a nursing home. My pudding choice was bread & butter pudding with birds custard. It was pale and bland. My fellow diner who also had the steak was equaly disappointed but one lucky diner out of the 5 of us had what looked like an amazing fish and chips and had the most amazing sticky toffee pudding. The service, unlike the food was good: they dealt with our complaints very well and took the steaks off the bill.

The wine list was limited in choice and although good ,at £18 for a shiraz a little expensive. The place was at best half full and this was Sat night, a telling sign.

I would never go back unless I wanted fish and chips a mug of tea and a slab of sticky toffee pudding with packet custard but it is birds so thats okay...
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Putney Man
2 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 0
Sunday, January 16, 2011

I went for lunch with some friends last week. I was very disappointed. I asked for a pie and 2 salads, the pie was dry and tasteless, the artichoke salad came from a jar an the roast vegetables salad consist in 7 pieces of soggy cold parsnip and 1 piece of carrot (i am sure they have been roasted the day before!). My friend asked for salmon and it was over boiled and the salads as bad as mine.

I think Greg Wallace should employ one of the contestants from masterchef, anyone would be a hundred time better that the one he has!!!

The place was empty, it was a Friday, It should have been a sign!! I will never come back.
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Marta
1 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Saturday, November 13, 2010

I went to the restaurant with some local friends. We were all so excited to have what we thought would be a good cafe in Putney. Unfortunately on both that and our next visit we were very disappointed. On the first visit - we had very ordinary quality food (between us we tried all the different roasts) and disinterested staff. On the second occasion we went for brunch only to be served up with stale toast even before our food arrived. The staff were even more off hand and curt. They changed my toast - but we did not really get an apology and they did not seem half as aghast as we were!

It really was appalling and unfortunately we will not be back. It makes a mockery of the quality and standard that Greg appears to stand for on the masterchef!

disappointed local resident
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2 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 1
Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Found the reception a little icy (a 'Hello' would have been nice) and management/ chef inflexible. We booked our table for midday, were seated at roughly 12:05 and we all ordered the All-Day breakfast. One of us asked to have the eggs scrambled instead of fried and was told that they could only do scrambled eggs before 12 o'clock. When we approached the manager to find out why the chef was so inflexible we were told 'Those are the rules'. In my opinion if you're doing an All-Day breakfast giving diners a choice of how they'd like their eggs done is essential. Food good overall but not sure I will be going back.
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7 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 7
Monday, October 18, 2010

This is the second time I have visited Wallace and Co. for breakfast - the first time I went was quite disappointing but it was shortly after they had opened, so I decided to give them a second chance. Mistake.

As per my first visit, we had to flag down a waiter to take our order ( no one asked us if we wanted coffee or drinks while we perused the menu). While once finally ordered, our coffees arrived shortly (with cold milk. I hate restaurants that serve coffee with a pot of cold milk. It really doesn't take that much effort to warm it up and makes a world of difference. But I digress), we again had to flag someone down to bring us the carafe of water that we had requested.

My husband ordered a full English, while I had the vegetarian option. A good 10 minutes before our plates were brought out, a waitress dumped the toast on our table. Im not sure why we would want our toast 10 minutes before the accompanying meal, as this meant that the toast was quite cold by the time our food finally arrived, and made spreading butter quite difficult. I must note that the first time we visited Wallace and Co, they failed to bring us any toast at all. When I enquired about this, they told me that they prepare their toast in a separate area to the rest of the food. This must surely explain the badly coordinated service this time around as well but frankly, I do not care much about the logistics of their kitchen, I just want everything to arrive at the same time - warm preferably.

That said, the rest of the food was tasty. Although one final gripe is that while the vegetarian breakfast makes note of mushrooms (note the plural), it was served with one small field mushroom. Not the end of the world, but this place cant seem to get the basics right and I will not be giving them a third chance.

Shame as before it actually opened, most people in Putney were highly anticipating it as a welcome addition to the Upper Richmond Road.
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Elissa
6 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 6
Sunday, August 22, 2010

I can't believe how poor the food was in this restaurant. We had the steak and kidney pie which consisted of cardboard pastry, tough meat and brown water which I believe might have been gravy. Our course this was just our experience and i'm sure that at all other times the food here is excellent. But I won't be going to find out.
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David Coward
3 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 0
Thursday, July 22, 2010