To Preface: I was excited to try this place as I'd heard a lot of very positive reviews of The House.I finally got a chance to have Brunch there with a friend of mine, but was very disappointed, and the two stars are solely for the Food.
We arrived around 1 pm and were seated right away, despite it being busy. Although the waitress took our Orders only a few minutes later, we had to wait a good ten minutes for our coffee to arrive. It took about 40 minutes for our Brunch to arrive. We'd ordered Eggs Benedict and a side of Fries, so nothing super fancy that would take a lot of preparation time.
The food itself tasted really nice, portions are generous and good value for money. We didn't see much of our waitress after she'd brought the food, though. While we were eating, we weren't asked whether we'd like another coffee (yes, please) nor were our empty Bellini glasses cleared away, despite four waiters walking past our table every couple of minutes. Once we'd finished, it took them fifteen minutes to clear away the plates.
If we hadn't asked for the dessert menu, the waiter (different from the one who took our order) wouldn't even have offered it to us, nor did he ask if we wanted anything else to drink. He brought the menu to our table a few minutes later by casually dropping them on the table while he was walking past. My friend and I were both quite irritated - really, you can't take ten seconds to stop what you're doing and hand us the menus? We should've left, but the desserts sounded too good to pass up on, so we both ordered something.
My friend's Brownie arrived first, with my Apple Crumble arriving a good five minutes after - another No-No in my book for a restaurant like this. Desserts were both delicious (although my Apple Crumble contained a piece of plastic. (!)......and my friend's Brownie was slightly undercooked).
Since it was a lovely day, we asked for the bill - it took a while to find a waiter to ask for it, though. This was after having finished our desserts for about 15 mins and no one coming by to clean up the empty plates - again. Asked for the bill, waiter said he'd bring it. Ten minutes later, still nothing. I stopped a different waitress and asked for the bill, mentioning that we'd like to pay by card (which, in my books, is a very obvious hint she should bring the card reader with her.).
She came back a few minutes later and put the bill down in front of us - without the card reader. We reminded her we wanted to pay by - yes, card. She had to go back and get it and we could finally pay; however, I should mention that she seemed quite disgruntled that we didn't leave her a tip. Now I'm usually not someone who doesn't tip, but by this point I was so annoyed with the bad service overall that I didn't leave one.
TL;DR: great food but the service is some of the worst I've experienced in Dublin. It was busy, but not overwhelmingly so that it should have taken them this long. We were there for over 2 hours (!) - definitely won't be coming back. read more