The Zetland Arms, South Kensington - pub details
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Address: 2 Bute Street, Kensington, London, SW7 3EX [map] [gmap]
Tel: 0871 951 1000 (ref 264) - calls cost 10p per minute plus network extras
South Kensington (0.1 miles), Gloucester Road (0.3 miles), Earl's Court (0.8 miles)
West Brompton (1 mile), London Victoria (1.5 miles), London Paddington (1.6 miles)
Pub facilities/features:
- TV, Big screen
- Pool table (1), Quiz machines (Millionaire)
- Food served, Real ale
- Smoking area
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> Current user rating: 3.9/10 (rated by 61 users)
> Hotels nearby: Search
> Local guide: London pub guide
other pubs nearby:
Janets Bar, South Kensington (0.0 miles), Norfolk Bar, South Kensington (0.1 miles), Kavanagh's Irish Bar, South Kensington (0.1 miles), Hoop and Toy, South Kensington (0.1 miles), Hereford Arms, South Kensington (0.2 miles) - see more nearby pubs
user reviews of the Zetland Arms, South Kensington
please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
5 most recent reviews of 72 shown - see all reviews
| Turned out this pub was a pleasant surprise. I remember it as a dirty little boozer where it took an age to get served but it is smarter and cleaner and the bar staff most of whom seemed to speak English as a first language were fast and efficient. The ales were good and the fish and chips were excellent. It is a couple of years since I worked in Sth Ken but the Zetland is 100% better than it was. kfloyd - 12 Aug 2011 17:35 |
| This is the kind of pub you wander into by accident. Awful staff who seem baffled by simple requests and you never recognise a face when you wander in. So many better gaffs, why bother? HRHMICKEY - 27 Feb 2011 15:24 |
| I was in the South Ken area and fancied a pub lunch. Externally the Zetland Arms looked inviting and having put my head through the door I could see a wide mix of clientele, from builders to business suits to tourists. It was noisy, lively and bustling - this I mistakenly took for a good sign as why would all these people be in the pub if it wasn't good. I can only Imagine that the customers I saw were a transient bunch who like myself were just passing through South Ken as I discovered no-one would use the pub as a regular after my food experience. I ordered a plain steak sandwich on white bread leaving out the tomato and chutney that came with it on the menu - the barman stared at the till looking to see how he might overcome the options printed on the computerised till to omit the chutney and toms. Eventually I ordered, paid and sat down with my pint of Guinness and awaited with expectation for the sandwich to arrive. Twenty minutes later the sandwich arrived - it had the tomato and chutney with it that I did not want. I pressed on removing the chutney and tomato but discovered when I opened the second half of the sandwich that it contained the smallest piece of steak you could imagine without it being just bread and butter. I politely complained at the bar and was ordered a replacement sandwich and was promised a steak sandwich with onions. Twenty minutes later after much harrying my sandwich arrived. It came with chutney and tomato but worse still it came on brown whole grain bread. It took me nearly an hour to reach this point at which I got a refund; of course this did not compensate for a ruined lunch and rubbish experience. There seemed to be plenty of focus on taking money at the bar but little care what happened after that. I can see from the ratings this pub has (if only I'd read them before using it) that this is a poor pub with poor management who don't seem to care about repeat business but rely on a passing trade of mostly one timers. papaspec - 24 Dec 2010 18:48 |
| Situated close to South Kensington Tube Station on a busy main road is The Zetland Arms, an attractive looking largish street corner pub. An information board in one of the doorways tells us that the pub dates back to 1845 and is the oldest building left on the street. In 1880 it was run by Sid Chaplin, the brother of Charles Chaplin. The pub gains its name from the Danish influence of the population in the area at the time. It's a former Greene King pub, but recently became part of the Punch Taverns empire. The pub retains a fine curved mahogany bar and some etched glass has been retained and repositioned on a wall in the large room at the side of the bar, hinting as a certain lost grandeur, but there's an inevitable chain pub feel to the place, as might be expected from a Punch Taverns outlet with a seemingly clear emphasis on feeding the passing hordes of tourists visiting the nearby museums. Inept black shirted foreign bar staff and a transient clientele contributed to what is, all too often unfortunately, a fairly typical London pub experience nowadays. Of particular note was, from memory, my first 2010 sighting of a blackboard with the message urging me to "Book Now for Christmas". There's an upstairs function room. Several relatively unobtrusive TV screens were showing the motor racing. Posters in the gents toilets advertised live football from both La Liga and Serie A, perhaps indicative of the customer base. 3 beers were on - St Austell Tribute, Pride and Youngs London Gold. A 4th pump had a TT Landlord pump clip reversed. On my recent Sunday lunchtime visit, my pint of Tribute was served a good inch short, even after the frothy head had subsided and, despite giving the young barmaid ( Spanish, I suspect ) more than ample opportunity to rectify the short measure, I had to specifically request a top up. This elicited a rather suspicious look in response. I told her that the Weights and Measures people might decide to call in sometime, but I don't think she understood where I was coming from. My conversational Spanish isn't what it used to be, so I had to make do with giving her my best sourpuss look.. I've written to Punch Taverns about my experience suggesting that they might want to provide some training pretty pronto - let's see what they say. Ironically, the Tribute - £ 3.32p - tasted really good, although being served short measure always leaves a nasty taste in the mouth as far as I'm concerned. Previous reviews here are not exactly glowing and I'm not putting this one down for a revisit. JohnBonser - 21 Jul 2010 14:14 |
| Last night (Friday) at 10.15pm, just one guy was serving behind the bar, as a queue of thirsty customers steadily built up around the bar. The barman worked very quickly, but he was on his own. Where were the other team members? Two other barmen on duty were either on their break or in the cellar. The fourth team member, a Spanish barmaid, was behind the bar - but when customers politely asked her if she was serving, she sharply rebuked that putting clean glasses back on the shelf took priority over serving customers! Some customers walked out! Others shrugged their shoulders as they are regular customers and stoically accept the rude attitude of most barstaff in the Zetland. Eventually, like a convoy of buses, the two absent barmen returned and the Spanish girl was suddenly available to serve - and where were all the customers? It's a shame that the duty manager was too busy cashing up in the office to see this performance. The Zetland is becoming as notorious as the Coach and Horses in Soho once was, when Jeffrey Barnard drank there and Norman was the rude landlord. Customers would go there for the novelty of being insulted. There is a high turnover of staff in the Zetland, compared with neighbouring pubs in the same company. The staff don't appear to be happy and clearly don't enjoy their work - they often speak to each other in the own languages or stand in a huddle behind the bar preferring an impromtu team meeting to serving customers. In neighbouring pubs, there is a low turnover of staff, customers are treated like royalty, staff build up good relationships/friendships with regular customers - and there is a great atmosphere. I can't work out what's going wrong at the Zetland, it's a good sized pub, it's in a fantastic location, it has TV screens showing the sport, it plays good background music, the beer is OK - why are the staff so poor? It may have something to do with leadership. Are they inspired and enthused by their manager? Are they trained in customer service and communication? Are they encouraged to achieve targets and work hard as a team? Perhaps I should change career go into pub management. Punch Taverns, do you have any vacancies? I suspect you may be recruiting a new manager at the Zetland very soon! I won't give an appraisal of all team members at the Zetland, but special mention must go to the Spanish "clown", who loves to juggle with glasses and bottles. It inevitably leads to lots of breakages, as if he was a juggler he would be in a circus. andrew2006 - 26 Jun 2010 18:12 |
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