Been wanting to visit for ages as Cornucopian appears frequently in newspaper/ online lists of top vegetarian restaurants worldwide, plus I have the brilliant Cornucopia Cookbook. Got the chance on Monday morning, 26 February 2018. It's a casual restaurant where you queue up, order, pay for your food, then find a table with tray in hand. Canteen style, no table service here.
It was quiet with just a couple of people already queueing up for breakfast when we arrived. Despite this, the lady behind the counter was slow at serving and our party of four had quite a wait. We ordered two cooked breakfasts (sausage, scrambled tofu etc), one porridge and one pancake. The food was delicious, but staff and the horrendous service they offered really let Cornucopia down.
Blonde Lady who plated our food took forever to do so, then passed said plates to a Brunette Lady at a till. So, we had to queue to order, then queue again at a till to pay whilst our food sat on plates going cold. When we did eventually get to the till, Brunette took forever to provide us with coffee and toast. We had to stand waiting for ages as she toasted bread and got coffees/teas. It was ridiculous. I was so fed up waiting I told her I didn't want any toast but she didn't seem to understand this and kept asking which type of bread I wanted toasted, as apparently it was part of the cooked breakfast deal. She also didn't get the concept that we were all paying individually for our meals. Eventually and thankfully, we escaped her and got a table easily. There weren't many people there - we had probably missed the breakfast rush.
Our two cooked breakfasts and porridge had been obtained already, but the pancakes had yet to be made and we were told they would be left to our table. Fifteen minutes passed and three of us had very nearly finished our food - still no pancakes. We stopped a guy who was clearing tables to ask about the pancakes, he went to enquire and told they would be left down ASAP.
A further 10 minutes passed, then Brunette shuffled out with pancakes in hand and gave them to another table! We heard the other customer state pancakes were not what she ordered, but she'd take them anyway as she'd been waiting so long! We were speechless! Brunette wandered off and we optimistically thought maybe our pancakes would be with us soon and had not just been given to another person - after all, we were provided with a numbered sign when we ordered the pancakes to identify our table, surely Brunette hadn't just completely missed/ ignored this?!
But ten minutes later, still no pancakes. I went to the counter to complain - Blonde was there and apologised saying she was sorry there had indeed been a mix up and our pancakes were currently being made! Another 10 minute wait and they did eventually arrive. The wait had been appalling.
Probably among the worst service I've ever experienced. It was as if the staff had been beamed down to earth that morning from another planet and didn't have a clue what was going on. We really should just have asked for our money back and left, but of course our dining companion was hungry and he wanted food, thus we waited on those pancakes - for a long, long time. Five star food and one star service equals a three star rating overall - and I'm probably being extremely generous here. Cornucopia, please get your act together and train your staff properly, otherwise you'll alienate a lot of customers if you don't... read more