Royal Exchange Grand Café

This is the 2nd time I've visited the Royal Exchange Café. First time was excellent. Second time was pretty poor. So really mixed experiences. In both cases the food and drinks were fine. However the service was markedly different. First time - strong. Second time - laughable verging on pathetic. Great location - shame about the service.

The service was truly abysmal, I think they had two staff max covering all of the tables. The food was good though and not a rip-off either. (unusual for the City)

Great setting , ok food

The booking service was great together with the greeting upon arrival. Dinning for 2, we received one lunch and one dinner menu. Advised the error only to be told the menu will be changed by a colleague. After two requests the dinner menu was replaced with a lunch menu. Starter was nice however the Prawns with rice were luke warm. Waiter was struggling to understand our requests. Felt there was a lack of interest towards the diners. No coat hanging area.

Excellent lunch - with probably the best fruit crumble I have ever tasted!

Service and atmosphere was very nice. Food was terrible.

Firstly we were 20 mins late for the table which should be taken into account. Very rushed after that. The £6.50 mocktail which was delicious was cleared when still a third full, which was irritating but I opted to not mention it. The food was good and hot but I think "priced for premium location". The menu is limited but that is reasonable for what is top end bar food. I think "restaurant" is a stretch personally. Whilst rushed the service was pleasant and professional. The location is amazing, steeped in history and fantastic architecture in an iconic London building. That is an experience in itself. Glad to have tried it but unlikely to go back. Much better value in the locale but not with that internal view which is my summary in that is what you pay for. Would recommend as a one off and my steer would be go for coffee or drinks rather than lunch or dinner. Clearly many drinkers/diners doing business meets which works, I was purely on a social lunch.

low service but pleasant area

The restaurant location is pretty amazing and the staff were extremely pleasant however I was left disappointed with our lunch experience. My mother had ordered the hot salt beef sandwich and I ordered the hummus, avocado and egg sandwich. We waited a significant amount of time with no appearance of our food to the point I thought they may have forgotten our order all together. Working in the City, I was limited to time so asked the waiter if he could chase up our order. When our sandwiches finally arrived, it was very apparent that my mother's hot salt beef sandwich had been left sitting under a hot light to keep it warm however this had left the top layer of bread of the sandwich really dry and the beef within luke-warm, almost to the point of being cold. No doubt our meals had been sitting there waiting to be served for quite a while. When we mentioned our disappointment with my mothers lunch, especially as they charge £15 for a sandwich, we were offered for the sandwich to be made again. Unfortunately due to time constraints, we asked if they could bring some fresh bread to the table instead. In contrast my cold sandwich was delicious. The restaurant kindly took the cost of my mother's lunch off the bill but I would have rather paid and been served a lovely lunch for us both to enjoy. My mother had made a special trip into London and was looking forward to the treat and this put a dampener on the experience. The restaurant was very busy and I guess this is to be expected but this should be accommodated for by having sufficient number of waiting staff so meals aren't left waiting to be served for long periods of time under a hot light. I would return to give the food another chance but am disappointed with my first visit to this restaurant.

Firstly, there was no one to greet mewhen i arrived and I had to walk through the restaurant and ask for help and secondly i found the staff unattentive (although pleasant once we attracted attention). I felt my Thai dish was not hot enough, but it was tasty. I thought the food was expensive for what it was.