A nice pub for a summer drink, but generally several beers off, quite often no actual glasses and I've oft experienced either flat beer or rude / inept service, which I guess is a victim of their success with admittedly cute bar staff wanting to be seen working there, as opposed to wanting to actually do any work there, other than talk to their mates or be left alone to relax off a comedown... I find that if you stick the addlestones it's high turn over, a good solid inbev cider and is generally very fresh and very quaffable.
I live in London Fields, am part of the widely hated generation of gentrify-ers so have nothing against the asymmetrical hair, rolled up chinos, thick rimmed glasses or pretentiousness of the customers, that's not my issue here... simply think it's a shame that this pub which could be so good, so often falls short on the basics.
Food wise.... I'd heard very good things about this place, from the Michelin sticker on the window to my missus waxing lyrical, so on Monday after forgetting Buen Ayre was shut for lunches we ventured in.
It started well, breezy service, an interesting looking quite balanced chalk board menu but then, somewhat ominously, our drinks order came back rejected... with no ales left on tap, no ciders left on tap and the Heineken flat, compounded by no ginger ale left (substituted in the rum & ginger by a £2.75 glass of ginger beer)
The cheery service soon fell to pieces as the girl we were with tucked into a slice of carrot cake she'd brought from down the road. Fair enough it was cheeky, but a quiet word would have sufficed rather than a barman losing his cool, jogging over and shouting at the poor girl, bearing in mind we had just placed a £60-£70 order in an otherwise empty pub.
So onto the food....
The terrine was bland, over fatty with negligible chunks of meat, the piccalilli which it came with was good, freshly made, but didn't go with the pork (and homemade chutney had been advertised) .. it also had somewhat of a deathly palor and rubbery texture so may well have been an old batch. Quite simply it was OK but didn't taste very good. The toast was meagre portion wise (one small slice of admittedly good sour dough) and not cooked at all on one side.
Having not eaten since an 11pm the previous night chip butty whilst drunk I quite literally would have eaten a horse. I left half the terrine and no one else was keen to snaffle it up.
My friends lamb burger was over cooked, under seasoned and also (small point) didn't come with chips which were a further £3 ish and also unfortunately over cooked.
I was hungry and also am greedy so had ordered more.
The black pudding and scallops in white bean puree looked great on paper (blackboard) and the scallops were fresh and impeccably cooked but as a whole the dish simply tasted of nothing and again I left the majority of the food. It looked pretty but tasted desperately bland.
The menu seems to have that gastropub affliction of winging through various genres of fusion food when maybe they should stick to a solid speciality and actually specialise, rather than box tick and fall into mediocrity. And from this initial experience I can only conclude that the food service is a slap dash as the general pub itself and not a separate and 'actually rather good' entity that I had been led to believe.
Disappointing. read more