I arrived here, having been here before, and having been very disappointed with the place in the past. I was hoping it might have improved, as it seems fairly popular. The decor is nice enough. The service is nothing short of atrocious. We were left waiting for at least fifteen to twenty minutes after sitting at a table, just to finally be thrown a menu by the disgruntled waitress. During all of that time, l was left wondering what on earth was going on. I considered leaving. The food is awful: utterly bland, poorly cooked, and microwaved to within an inch of its sorry life. My son basically ate processed food out of a packet, and he burnt himself biting in to it. Awful. Yet, unlike other cafes in the area, who do a meal deal for kids, this place has highly processed, microwaved meals for children, worse than in any pub l know of, for £5.95, at least. Then, a kids' juice is over £3, and ice-cream even more than that, so, if you get all three, you would spend around £15 on something you could get at a far better cafe around the corner for £6-7. This place is a total rip-off. My meal was almost inedible. The salad was about 3 days old, the leaves were brown and curling up. The old stuffed aubergine was bitter, and was drowning in turgid tomato sauce. And guess what? For the privilege of paying what amounts to £25 to £30 for one small sparkling water, two revolting courses of food, and one tiny processed kids' meal with a juice, the staff behave as if they are doing you a huge favour. The waitress practically threw the cutlery at us. When l requested ketchup for my son, it never arrived. The tables are dirty, and not properly cleared, even during the Covid pandemic. I had to request the ketchup again and again and again from different staff, who were unfriendly.
When we then had to wait for at least 15-20 minutes with zero acknowledgement or service for the dessert, which was very easy to prepare ice-cream, nobody cleared the table. In fact, nobody even noticed us at all. I asked a passing waitress for the dessert. She looked utterly confused, as if l had asked her the directions to get to the moon. She was also rude and dismissive.
The order was also incorrect. I made it very clear what l wanted on the menu, but was brought a different version of the same dish, which l specifically said l did not want. This place is utterly dysfunctional on every single level. If it were not in Crouch End, where certain people have more money than sense, it would have gone out of business years ago. There is better food at Wetherspoons, as another reviewer pointed out in 2012. She is right. That still holds true in late 2020. What a joke!
The staff are rude, wilfully inefficient and, seemingly, the management of this place are arrogant, and could not give a toss. To add insult to injury, l had to then ask for the bill three times. Unbelievable!!! Never again. Overpriced and an unpleasant and, frankly, exhausting experience, as one struggles to get served. This is the sort of place you would send your worst enemy to, just so that they can experience the exquisite torture of sitting in a well appointed, well decorated eatery to be totally ignored, forced to eat terrible food, and then pay a small fortune for the privelege. Never again.