please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
Dropped in for a quick pint mid afternoon on the way back to the office.
A couple of ales on the hand pumps, but I didn’t fancy a Doom Bar or whatever the other offerings were so went for a keg pint of Sierra Nevada pale, not cheap mind at £5.55 a pint, but this is Canary Wharf.
Pretty empty so no annoying local workers, it did the job for a quick pint.
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I have used this place a couple of times in the last few years.
No ale on tap and the service is a bit crap….European lagers on offer, seats outside like the Pitcher & Piano just not as nice.
It’s a chain and All Bar One’s are normally fine, just not my thing but it serves a purpose if you need a beer.
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Love all this "pricks in suits" crap.
Maybe the posters responsible should take a long hard look at themselves instead of slagging others off.
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You wouldn't expect to find people in suits in londons no 2 business district would you if you dont like that sort of thing don't drink there.
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Full of bankers and perenially busy. Avoid like the plague.
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A bit bland, but nothing out of the ordinary for a Wharf establishment. Got the surprise of my life with some astonishingly rude behaviour from one of the bar staff. On ordering three shots, one of them hadn't been filled as much as the others. As I was giving them to three friends standing together, I asked the barman (perfectly politely!) if he wouldn't mind topping the smaller one up so that they were all the same. He showed absolutely no response other than a look of disgust, then tipped half the contents of the larger two out, snapping, "Fine - have it your way." Gobsmacked. Needless to say I refused to pay for them and he threw them away. What a weird place.
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Awful chain pub outside a shopping centre. The view of the dock may be pleasant but you're essentially drinking in a soulless establishment in a business district. Bar staff mainly disinterested and very slow. God knows what it's like to get served if the place is busy as it was taking 10 minutes on Saturday night with no crowds. One point for Doombar (they have that and London Pride) although lessons in learning how to pour it would no go amiss. If you're a Suit working around here, you may drop in for a pint as it's by your office. If you don't work around here, there is no reason whatsoever for visiting.
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slightly poncy - obviously cant avoid it being full of pricks in suits........but the view of the water is nice.
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tootster. No, I have noticed the smell as well! It is a most peculiar smell.
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if im in and around the wharf on business , i tend to use this place or the pub at the far end of the quay , i normally get away before it gets too busy or im around there over the weekend so i havent really had a problem getting served , i tend not to expect too much from chain bars and i havent had a problem here , its not a place you could call a proper "local" if there is such a thing now days .
it does what its meant to , and the smokers shelters are a nice touch , gets cold down there sometimes
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if im in and around the wharf on business , i tend to use this place or the pub at the far end of the quay , i normally get away before it gets too busy or im around there over the weekend so i havent really had a problem getting served , i tend not to expect too much from chain bars and i havent had a problem here , its not a place you could call a proper "local" if there is such a thing now days .
it does what its meant to , and the smokers shelters are a nice touch , gets cold down there sometimes
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Well, bearing that its in Canary Wharf its a given its going to be a busy place. I mean look at the size of the offices compared to the size of the pubs and people should get a clue as to what to expect. Its been refurbished in Jan 10, which seems to mean 100% new, 10% different to before! There wasn't anything wrong before really so no complaints there ( with the actual physical bar).
It does a fair few draughts now, inc some European fighting juice styles like Duvel (7%!) & Erdinger. Also does ok food. Its ok (for the Wharf)
Pros:
- Its not Corney & Barrow
- Close to the tube for sneaking off
- Has a large outside area
- Does ridiculous strength beer
- No Shot wh0res
- Has smokers refuges with little mercy heaters
Cons:
- Does ridiculous strength beer ;)
- Has a weird smell outisde from the Retuters building vents I have to walk past each day to work, am I the only one to notice this?
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The other reviews are more than a bit harsh! I've worked at CW for the last year and a bit, and All Bar One is my hostelry of choice. The food's excellent, the service is acceptable (you have to know where to stand) and the atmosphere is good. Clearly, it's a chain and, in the interests of disclosure, I drink bland fizzy lager so the absence of real ale is a positive thing for me - but nonetheless this is the place I keep coming back to, as do my warm ale drinking friends.
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The single real ale, London Pride, turned out not to be real - they have a keg form, no handpumps or casks involved.
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absolutely rubbish. i waited for over 15 mins to get served and it wasn't very busy....why don't these big companies learn what the average punter wants.
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Maybe I was lucky. A busy Friday lunchtime but got seved quickly by a native speaker of English. It was a lager frenzy, the only bitter being Pride and was too cold to taste.
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Lots of staff; very little service.
Expect a hefty wait, you'll then spend frustrating minutes trying to impart your order (if speaking English).
A poor selection of beer; reasonable food - heavily marked up.
Expensive, devoid of character and unpleasant.
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I have to disagree with the last comment on the food served here - I have been dining at All Bar One Canary Wharf at least five times a week since January and the food has always been excellent - although I agree the bar staff have a tad of attitude (surprisingly the females not the males). I eat around Canary Wharf but always come back to this All Bar One because the food is the best. Enjoy the waterside - and the food.
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Great location, nice suited clientele. Drinks are overpriced and average quality; food is horrendous and when you complain none of the staff give a toss. Do NOT eat here under any circumstances. Service slow and indifferent. The only bonus is the location on the water and the generous outdoors area with plenty of covered seating. Overall, avoid like the plague - this place is diabolical, and there are better pubs in the area.
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Full of suits. Plus they seem to let the local bully boys drink here. Have heard plenty of stories of assaults in here by local thugs.
A shame as its a nice looking place.
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Observe the countless staff endlessly carrying glasses from one end of the bar to the other. Ponder why the only person serving seems completely unfamiliar with the names of the various beers they threaten to sell. Belch, exhale, leave.
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One of the worst of a bad bunch of bars in Canary Wharf. Incredibly slow bar staff (why?) and the usual business bores as clientele.
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Loud. Cramped. Smelly. Overpriced. Rude, idle bar staff. Avoid at all costs.
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Made the mistake of going in midweek. Packed with office workers talking about work, great place for an industrial spy - loads of corporate information to be picked up!. Hard to filter out the noise and relax. Pint of Pedegree was okay and the menu looked alright. Probably worth a visit at the weekend and with the outdoor tables, one for a bit of people watching come the summer. If sensitive to loud business men and women, avoid during the week....
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Too much work talk. Too packed. Slow bar staff. Food is pretty good though, good sandwiches.
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This place is alright on a Saturday after you've done some shopping.(Stonch - Canary Wharf is quite busy on a Saturday - its got a good shopping centre and some of us actually live nearby you know!)
We visited during their Beer Boutique and had some nice Kriek and Wies Bier. The bar staff even questioned someone who asked for ice to go with their lovely Aspall's cider as to whether they were serious - I'd have personally thrown him out for such a heathen crime.
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My God, this place is full of the rudest, up-their-own-arses tossers I've ever had the misfortune to share a space with. The booze could be free in here and you'd still never want to enter the place again. There's no possible way you won't have an absolute tosser within a foot of you as the place is horribly packed. Unless you are obsessed with yourself and thoroughly objectionable in every way, don't even get near the place!
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On a weekday I would not go in here as it is just full of office workers talking about work all night. However I do recommend this on a weekend.
It's empty, good food, quiet and nice after visiting Canary Wharf.
anonymous - 4 Dec 2006 11:34 |
Typical AB1....namely overpriced and berift of any character or soul. Avoid.
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There are normal boozers in the vicinity. From the AB1, cross in front of the tube station and turn right along Heron Quay. A 5 minute walk will have you at the (VERY cheap, and friendly, sadly shortly to close) Heron, turn left and another 100 yds will have you at the City Pride, another 22 yds past the City Pride and turn right down the steps and you're at the North Pole, which is definitely a normal boozer
Any of these three is a better bet than AB1, or all the other suit bars on the Wharf itself, they're all the same
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Well,..that interview went appallingly...ho hum,..."Excuse me mate, is there a normal boozer around here?"
"Nope, theres the All Bar One over there mate......"
"Yeah, yeah, i saw that,...erm,...Nowhere else,..i mean i don't mind walking a bit,...you know,..just a boozer,..a sh ithole,...?"
"Nope,..thats your lot mate,...........get on the tube."
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Can this place really be as bad as a 1.7/10 rating suggests?
I'm afraid so!
Do the staff here actually recieve training in ignorance, or is it just some god-given gift?
Imagine working here if you cared that the public thought the standard and quality of the beverages was worse than a night drinking Harp or, dear God, Hoffmeister?
Shocking!!!
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Big Up Mr Lash! Love this place too! Unfortunately Fosters is my poison of choice (a la conniwot). But I do possess numerous TM Lewin shirts and tie my tieknots ludicrously large. I also have a pair of fake Gucci loafers which I wear in summertime minus socks.
Can I join your gang?
anonymous - 20 Apr 2006 13:58 |
Ever since I donated my brain to medical science I've loved drinking Carlsberg in here after a hard day at work in the back office. Top marks.
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Hilarious review, if it were not for the fact it isn't tongue in cheek. You started off on a combative note with your "traditional pub snob" comment so consider battle joined, my friend.
Listing the likes of now-ubiquitious beers like Staropramen, Carlsberg and Leffe Blonde as indicating an amazing beer choice is comical - particular considering the fact you included Guinness Extra Cold (psssst, it is normal Guinness from the same keg run through a cooler, see the Guinness website if you don't believe me). Likewise considering a keg bitter and two (admittedly real, but entirely passe) ales from large national brewers as representing a good ale choice is plain silly and shows you know little about beer. Sorry if that is snobby - it just happens to be true.
Ozzyblue, the regular contributors to this site who do down bar chains like ABO don't dislike them because they are snobs - we dislike them because they are bland, corporate rubbish, run to make money out of the benighted whilst denying them the great pub and beer heritage that is and always has been integral to British culture.
I'd rather drink a can of Skol Super by the bins out the back of this place than darken its doors.
anonymous - 19 Apr 2006 15:34 |
This bar is not one for the traditional pub snobs. It's clean, the air is virtually smoke free, there are lots of good looking young women, there is a wide range of foods, and there are more interesting beer choices than just your traditional dull ales and boring lagers.
Beers on tap include Edelweiss, Staropramen, Amstel, Stella Artois, Guinness Extra Cold, Dom Kolsch, Leffe Blonde, Bellevue Kriek and Carlsberg. And there are three new additions this week of Bombardier, Old Speckled Hen and IPA Smooth. It's probably the best selection in the Wharf, and you'll do well to get more choice anywhere else in central London.
For a lunch time beer this place is ideal if you want a well looked after beer and you do not want to go back to the office smelling of smoke. The main draw-back though is that getting served can take quite a while on occasions. The management needs to sort that out as it can be frustrating. In the evenings the place is packed and is probably best avoided if you want a quick pint.
The price of beers might be an extra 20-50p than some other places around, but if you're worried about that then why are you drinking in the Wharf in the first place??!!
Something to keep an eye out for here though that may make some of you very wary, is that I recently saw one of the guys at the bar putting a piece of lime in his pint of Stella!! Must have been one of the Citibank boys I suspect.
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Dreadful place. Just like every other All Bar one but with the added ingredient of being packed after 4pm with 20-something suits, all shouting loudly. Most of the pubs in CW are crap and this is the worst, partly because its proximity to the tube station means it's a;ways the busiest. Almost nothing to recommend it
dodgy - 17 Apr 2006 22:24 |
Overpriced beer and crap food, the fry up that we got in there was reasonably priced it must have been the bit of basil and some other unknown twiggery that they put on it that bumped up the price by �8 I guess.
Also a ponce haven, I have always been curious why the pink ties of Canary Wharf (and everywhere else) go to these places to be seen and to prove to all that you are a discerning yet cool entrepreneur. Strikes me though that anyone with half a brain would think twice before going anywhere where they charged like a wounded rhino for beer and presented you with a plate of vomit with a sprig of parsley on it for 15 quid.
Since when did the new trendy include being taken to the cleaners?
anonymous - 26 Feb 2006 23:26 |
Went on a Tuesday night, busy but luckily I managed to find a seat. Few odd characters in there especially the guy that looked like he was trying to hump the table leg. Staff were good - no problems getting served.
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Along with Bar 38, the only place in Canary Wharf I'd ever set foot in again. It's just like every other AllBarOne though - nice beers + wines, but expensive + a chain.
SilkTork - loved the description of Erdinger!!!
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As another usual day ends, after spending my night in the queue that is All Bar One...I begin to wonder why am I a regular here??
It's not as though the drinks are fairly priced, the food is over priced and the staff are sooo rude!
Why..?Why..?Why..?
anonymous - 11 Sep 2005 20:41 |
Long trendy bar with 10 European beers on keg and one cask ale - London Pride. Prices are high - �3.80 for an Erdinger Weisbeer which tasted like fanta and savlon fermented and allowed to go stale and then fizzed up with co2.
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Well I was in here one Friday last November, just when everyone was finishing work. The bar was excellent, posh and expensive, but free orange slices and they let us in wearing Millwall tops so fair play.
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As a licensee I have to defend All Bar One - it is a simple licensing law; you must have a children's certificate for anyone under the age of 14 to be on the premises,unless in a dominant restaurant area.
They clearly have a regular off licence, over 18's only, and there are alot of people out there who are glad of this!
anonymous - 21 Nov 2004 00:10 |
I also had a similar experience to Vicky. After lining up for 15 minutes to get drinks at lunch time Sunday a waitress asked me who had children outside (adjacent to a public walkway)
Then she asked who has a baby outside. Yes I owned up and she said we can not serve the baby. I said the baby didn't need to be served. Anyway they asked us to leave. I used to be a regular here but will never visit again due to their ridiculous policies. Shame on you All Bar One!!!!
Peter - 23 Oct 2004 22:25 |
A friend visited this pub at 11.30am on 17 May 2004. Two coffees were purchased and my friend sat on an outside bench and gave her 4 month old son a bottle. A member of staff approached them and asked them to move on as they did not want babies there. What have we come to in London when this type of behaviour is acceptable.
Vicky - 18 May 2004 11:55 |
