Le Pain Quotidien - Royal Festival Hall

This is one of my favourite places for coffee and they have some gorgeous cakes on display.

Having just landed in London and taken the Heathrow Express to Paddington, we were peckish and ready for some grub.

Overall, the restaurant was decent, but there were a few downsides such as food shortages, slow service, and a noisy atmosphere.

Food always tastes good but the portions are really small for the price youre paying. I guess because everything is organic. But always a pleasant place to be.

Good for a quick pre theatre eat. We got two tartines (the mushroom one and another veggie one) both tasty. Serving the one with rocket sprinkled on it on a narrow board seemed a bit silly.

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).

Terrible service we had to ask several times just for drinks. The food, when it arrived (having tried to give us the wrong order first time) was poor. We both ordered the same thing avocado on toast with scrambled eggs and salmon. The portion sizes varied wildly. Both had very small amounts of avocado (maybe an 1/8 of avo) which had been smeared across the bread (not toast), which was dry. Served with cold butter. Scrambled eggs were cold and salmon brown. Do not recommend.

The service at this restaurant was very poor. I have dined at this location and others in the same chain before and had good experiences. Upon arrival, we were informed that they did not have our reservation, but they did seat us anyway. However, the service was extremely slow and we had to ask multiple times to place our order and for our coffee. Our food order was incorrect twice and we were made to feel like it was our fault. This made us feel very uncomfortable. When it came time to pay, I declined the optional service charge and explained why. I received a muttered apology. It is disappointing to receive such subpar service from a chain that is usually excellent.

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...