Le Pain Quotidien Royal Festival Hall

Eating always tastes good, but the portions are really small for the price you pay. I guess everything's organic. But always being a pleasant place.

Generally good, but with some specific negative food shortage, service slow, noisy.

Very poor service. I’ve dined here before (and other PQ restaurants) and had a good experience. Firstly we arrived to be told they had not received our booking but did seat us anyway. Service was extremely slow and we had to ask to place our order and again for our coffee. Our food order arrived incorrect twice and we were made to feel like it was our fault. After this we felt very uncomfortable. At the till I declined the optional service charge and said why. I got a mumbled apology. Such a shame and not the service I usually get from the restaurants in this usually excellent chain.

The food was nice and reasonably priced. The location was also fairly quiet so good for a catch up. However, the service was poor. Each and every waitor who served us made a mistake of some sort (e.g. wrong special, teapot of tea without a mug and laughed when a mug was requested, forgot to take the drinks to us for a long time, incorrect information given in respect of the bill when paying).

As I have recently discovered I cannot eat Gluten I have been limited with choices at restaurants. I found that they have a large folder of which dishes are suitable for different types of allergies (this was useful) however there is not much choice (especially if you want to avoid gluten free bread aswell). I ordered a gluten free quiche dish which was overall pleasant. I was still quite hungry but did not get the chance to order anything else. The service needs improving in efficiency for such a busy location. I asked for some more hot water for teapot several times along with the menu to order some dessert but was unable to do so in the extra 40 minutes I had. Instead when I asked for the bill this was done rather quickly. I was left still feeling quite hungry and overall a little underwhelmed by the service.