The Fentiman Arms, Kennington

When the bill arrived it had a hand written note saying "service not included" - never could a statement have been more accurate.

The service was truly dire, this pub can't seem to decide whether its a restaurant or a bar and seems to compromise by treating drinks and food customers equally badly. It takes an age to get a drink at the bar and longer if you wait for table service. The food came after an hour and was pretty dissappointing (although to be fair on my previous visits the poor service has been rescued by the good food)

The staff were forgetful, unattentive and seemed obsessed with their own incomprehensible process(i.e. it appears that only some of the staff are qualififed to take food orders, while some are just responsible for drinks... although it wasn't clear why).

We were told off for walking towards the bar to try and order food, even though we had said to another member of staff that we wanted to order food 20 mins ago and no one had materialised to take the order. We asked for a jug of extra gravy and were told yes, no problem, but it never arrived.

All very bizarre, because this place has the ingredients to work really well - good decor, decent beer - generally good food and a nice beer garden.

The training and the management must be spectacularly bad to make if fail so miserably.

15 Sep 2008 12:22