Restaurants

One of the worst dining experiences I have had in a long time.This restaurant made me so angry that I am not even going to waste my time writing down and ranting about the experience. Here is a summary.
-Maître d’ was patronizing and condescending.
-Waiters were argumentative and rude. One of the waiters argued with my partner about what she had seen on the menu (my partner was indeed correct) and then seemed indignant that it must be a new addition and no-one had ‘bothered to inform him’.
-The restaurant messed up out booking time – 9:30pm, claiming we had to sit down at 9:00pm as the kitchen would be closing soon. Utter nonsense as we saw people being seated up to 10:30pm.
-Asking to have butter with the bread seemed to be a problem.
-Food was bland and lacking flavour.
-Service was abysmal and un-attentive. I don't recall out wine being topped up on a single occasion.
-Bill was incorrect and we were charged for items (cocktails) that we never ordered.
You could not even pay me to return this place. Incredibly disappointing. Avoid at all costs.

- Service was crap
- Food was average
- when i complained to the waiter about the steak being 'too fatty' his response was 'I will tell the kitchen' and we didn't hear no more of it
- Entertainment that was promised for halloween was 'very poor'
- There are much better places to go in London for a night out.. in fact this is one of the worst that I have been too.
Unfortunately, I didn't read the reviews before booking and i thought it might have just been 'the night we went on' as it was halloween, but judging by the other comments on here its just BBB.. stands for BAD BAD BAD!!
.. Highly recommend Lounge Lover for cocktails!

Ok, the main review on this site was posted in 2007 so a little unfair to keep showing it, however, we went there last saturday and were completely amazed.
What can i say, apart from OMG!
The whole place looked simply amazing, had a great vibe, and from the outside i did not expect something so funky and upbeat.
The food was great, best fish and chips every, and my mates shared a chateaubriand. dessert was great, the baileys creme brulee was fab.
The english manager was funny, and friendly and was quite accommodating, he even had the bar-tender make a cocktail that wasnt on the list for my girlfrind as she loves watermelon, who does that on a saturday night.
I dont go for cocktails but my friends were happy with theirs, i stuck to the wine which was priced well considering where we were.
After dinner you can go down to the cocktail lounge and sit in these fantastic boothes and continue to chill. Was great. Just go there. But book, we had to book 2 weeksin advance!!!

terrible, terrible, terrible... if it was possible to give minus five stars i would
- food average
- prices extortionate for what you get
- staff useless
- music (yes its loud) bland trashy euro-trance
...terrible, terrible, terrible...

It was second time unlucky for this “trendy” Shoreditch establishment.
There is very little positive I can say about my second trip to this bar and restaurant…having had a bad experience first time around (when my visit to the bar was marked by awful bar service and overpriced cocktails), I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt and returned hoping for a better result.
Sadly BBB lived up to my very low expectations. All was going to plan until we wanted to order – our drinks took longer than expected to arrive and it was all downhill from there. We waited over half an hour for our starters to arrive and when the food finally showed up it was tasty if underwhelming. The worst was yet to come as we waited an unbelievable hour and half for our main courses to arrive…and waited…and waited…
When we enquired with the manager as to what the delay was we were given numerous reasons such as the understaffed kitchen and the fact that the restaurant was very busy (although I hasten to add that it was at most 60% full) but at no point did the manager so much as feign being apologetic. After several more attempts to track the location of our food we decided to cut our losses and cancel our order. Upon informing the manager of our decision he proceeded in being unnecessarily rude to us, gave us our bill (which was inordinately expensive given our lack of food!) and stormed off!
Needless to say we were shocked at the lack of professionalism shown by the manager although simultaneously relieved to finally be getting out of the restaurant!
If your idea of a good dining experience consists of overpriced and elusive food coupled with glacial pace service and indiscriminate rudeness then this place ticks all the boxes.
If not then BBB is best avoided.

Dreadful service all round. The staff, while ineffectual, didn't go out of their way to be difficult at least, which is less than can be said for their boss. To cut a long story short, we cancelled our mains after waiting over an hour from finishing our starters, the general response to which was "Bothered?", followed by us having an argument with the manager at our table as he claimed a restaurant at about 60% capacity was “really busy” – charming.
I don't know what we were thinking, if we had only bothered to read a few reviews, or indeed remembered our own past experience at the bar, we would never have bothered. A fabulous space indeed, but you’ll be happier on the outside looking in at the hungry diners inside, believe me.

I totally agree with this review. I went there with my boyfriend as a walk in. The staff were not only useless but had an air of arrogance about them. The food was not great, in fact our pasta (okay not an inspired choice but what we fancied having walked around in the rain) was almost raw. The chef disagreed with this proposition and said it was al dente. Sadly my boyfiriend's mother is Italian and a great cook so he knows when something is al dente and when it is raw. It was simply inedible but getting a replacement involved having to complain to 3 people who referred the complaint up to the chain to the manager. I hate complaining on a niight out and would rather just simply not return somewhere I was not happy with. But when you cannot eat the food, the line is crossed. We waited ages for our drinkls aswell which as cocktails go were average.
Such a desperate shame as the decor is amazing and if the food, drinks and staff matched it would be a mind blowing venue.

Went for dinner friends last night in the anticipation that it will be a great night but was incredibly disappointed. We were about the only table there besides two other small tables. It was a shame as it was my friends birthday and it was such a damper to be in a restaurant without any atmosphere. The menu was very small and we found it hard pressed to find much that we liked. The service was adequate but a little lazy and the wait was a little long considering how quite it was. The few diners and three or four people at the bar was kind of sad and not really conducive to fun night out. Also its not four floors of glamour as promised on their website. I would never go back.

Strange, i was in Beach blanket babylon on mothers day without my mother, thank god, she would have hated it. It was very very quiet. Unlike Amy who thought the service was good, i found it real bad and uninformed. The staff are not aware of the ingredients of the menu or offer to find out for you either. The food is way over priced for the portion and quality. The drinks were watery with too much ice. I also find it strange that there is another nearly identical review on the London Eating website except its signed Danielle. From my experience both 'Amy' and 'Danielle' must have been in another venue as they were in a busy restaurant with their mums on tow and had attentive, helpful and polite service...

I took my mum to Beach Blanket Babylon for mothers day and had a lovely evening. The food was great as were the cocktails, our server was attentive, helpful and poilte even though the restaurant was very busy.
I will deffinately be going back.