The Happenstance

What a disappointing experience went here with my girlfriend for our anniversary meal and ended up spending a lots of money on a meal that was hugely disappointing. she had surf and turf that came without any source which cost extra, without sides that cost nearly 4 pounds each. The tart Desert was tasteless with shop bought pastry. I had sirloin steak which was chewy and gristly.

We were looking specifically for a place to have brunch and once we read the menu and experienced the vibe of the place, we went for it. We all really enjoyed the décor and the atmosphere of the place especially on Christmas Eve. The breakfast tea was tasty and flavourful. My wife ordered the eggs on toast with a side of sausage. The presentation was nice and the quantity was more than she expected. Overall good taste and a good experience.
The blueberry pancakes were alright. A bit less than what my friend expected. There was about 4 of them with 6 blueberries and some powdered sugar. Don’t get them! Otherwise the place was great.
My friend was going to order the yogurt and fruit but the restaurant said they were out. She ordered the omelette instead and was impressed. It was very tasty and a lot in quantity.
I would highly recommend going and getting the Egg white omelette. Toast was a bit burnt but the omelette was excellent.
We all really enjoyed this place, the atmosphere, the location, food and drinks! The only reason it didn’t get a 5 star review was because of the pancake order!!!

While recently attending a small corporate party at the bar area of this establishment, myself and a few colleagues decided to step up to the dining room and have some dinner. We were put off slightly by the mediocre rating on Unilocal but, with everything in the area about to close for the evening, we decided to give it a try.
Even though there were just 5 minutes left to order, the staff accommodated our party of 8 and were very attentive.
I ordered the fillet with blue cheese cream while some of my colleagues ordered the risotto, duck flatbread, curry and so on.
Several plates were shared amongst us and I have to admit that each dish was exceptional and I would have been happy with any of these entrées myself.
I never review anything but I felt the 3 star rating on Unilocal was a poor reflection of the food and service we received at the Happenstance this evening.

All ambience, no substance. Came here for Sunday brunch. Beautiful and trendy space as per the usual with the D&M restaurant collection. I want all their furniture in my living room. Decent crowd at noon, mostly tourists and families.
The Sunday brunch menu has a small selection of all day breakfast items! Don’t order the breakfast items. Soggy toast that reeked of smoked salmon although no one at the table ordered smoked salmon. Salty scrambled eggs and dry blueberry pancakes. If it’s amazing pancakes you’re after, the pancakes are so much better just south of the river at the Table.
Multiple wait staff handle the same customers, which I believe gets confusing for them. They brought me the incorrect check and didn’t apologize for the mixup when they had to run my card to void and rebill. The check ordeal took about 30 min while they received manager approval. Luckily I didn’t have anywhere to be right after.

We held a private work dinner here and everything went well. Planning was easily coordinated and service during the evening was seamless. In addition, the private room is nicely designed and made a good impression on clients and potential clients. Food was also pretty good. Open WiFi is also nice.

Our least favorite of places we visited in London. Food was just so-​so. The dining room is in back and pub part is in front. The wait staff were not busy and still could not seem to get order to you without food being cold and wine can finally almost when we were done with dinner. Not a good place for children to eat. More people were in the pub than in dining room and there was a reason why we discovered. They do include the tip with your check so watch the bottom line if you eat here. Bathroom is in basement. A modern type décor and atmosphere. We visited July 2015.

We were celebrating a birthday so had a booking for 12 people. I was immediately impressed by how cool and spacious the place is. The location is pretty good too, very close to St Paul’s.
We got in and were seated pretty quickly but it seemed to take an age for the waiter to come over and get us started with a drinks order. Once we had our food and drinks orders in the service was much quicker, very good infact.
The menu was a very good one for me, plenty to choose from, I was actually struggling to pick but in the end decided to treat myself and went with the fillet steak. AMAZING! I could have eaten 10, so tasty.
Drink-​wise I was also well catered for, a few of my favourite beers and a cocktail menu for the girls to work through. I noticed a hen party were doing some cocktail making and they seemed to be having a great time.
They even brought out a ‘special’ birthday brownie for the birthday girl which was a nice touch and gave us an opportunity to do a bit of singing.
Great place, great food, great time.

Middle of the road (but not bad) food menu– serviceable wine list, great location, close to St. Paul’s, and the many other eateries and watering holes between there and Blackfriars. Friendly and efficient staff too. It being the hottest day in about ten years, we as a group were mostly drinking whites– so often off the budget-​business end of the list this would be like slinging back chilled juice from pickled onions, but there was a perfectly good Chenin Blanc.

First of all they have COCKTAILS! Delicious delicious cocktails with all sorts of fruity goodness… which obviously makes them healthy so that’s a gold star right there.
Secondly, they have an incredible menu of food which is both delicious and reasonably priced.
They won me over straight away with the halloumi burger (always a great vegetarian option!!) And with the fish and chips (huge!)
And they had gorgeous sweet potato fries. By this point, (2 cocktails down) they were really and truly in my good book.
The atmosphere is buzzing its a bar-​come-​restaurant so a great place to start a night out or to go for a Friday night dinner.
Staff were really friendly and provided really good service.
I highly recommend it, seriously, even if it’s just to try the cocktails go, for your taste buds’ sake!

Very bad… Had a group booking for xmas and they got it all wrong… We had no table ready and when we eventually ordered it was wrong. No excuse for spoiling a memorable evening… Worst… Nobody even said sorry!

Espresso Martinis are always the best! As well as many of the drinks. Thank you so much! If your in London please stop by here, it’s amazing! Service is top shelf as well as the food won’t disappoint!

The Happenstance has given me the worst service I have ever had in London. Sounds like an extreme statement, but even for London, it was grim.
First things first, the hostess was good to us and we were seated quickly (a woman in the restaurant did give the hostess a very strong reprimand while she was taking my party of 5 to our table because the woman was sat at the wrong table while her guests dined without her, but that had nothing to do with my table, so let’s move on). Fifteen minutes after being sat at the table, two of us were turning our heads to get the attention of one of the servers to take our drink orders. The restaurant was full of people and the servers were busy cleaning tables, but none looked in our direction until the hostess came back and told the server to take our order. By this time, we were ready to order our lunch… so we started out with drinks (2 fizzy oranges, a Coca Cola, an apple juice and an orange juice with ice), then went to the mains but… «Wait, wait can you start again?! I actually need to write this down because I won’t remember.» So we started again… 3 from my party ordered very straight forward from the menu (seafood linguine, 2 fish and chips) but I asked for a steak sandwich but with avocado instead of bread (this was an option on the menu telling customers that t hey could change) and a cheeseburger, also with avocado instead of bread. Anyway, the food comes out at different times — first the linguine, then the fish and chips and later the burger…15 minutes after the first person was served I am still waiting for my steak sandwich. We tell the server that they forgot to add the avocado to the burger that has already arrived at our table and when they go to get the avocado, I am served with a cold steak sandwich which was overcooked (they didn’t ask me how I wanted it cooked in the first place, but I am not a steak snob, so I let it go) with — no avocado as well. We request a second avocado and only 1 comes from the kitchen. 55 minutes after we first sat down at the Happenstance by St. Paul’s we have all gotten our food — although there were different portions of chips for each guest at the table, as well as forgotten sauces and side orders. As we were on our lunch break, we asked for the bill while I was in the middle of my meal as we had to get back to work. When the bill came, we hurriedly paid while I shovelled food down and told a new person at our table taking our payment, who was not our server, about our terrible service. She threw her hands in the air and said «This is the first time I’ve heard about this! I didn’t know this was happening! This wasn’t my fault… Sorry.» We were very gentle telling her about the horrific service but she was defensive anyway. After we paid, we notice the 12.5% service charge they added at the bottom of the bill. As we were already late and had to get back to the office, we left it.
The food and the décor were good, the service was terrible and the staff was aloof and inattentive. Overall conclusion, eat here if you like to be ignored and forgotten.

The concept and beautiful interior (like if Anthropologie had a restaurant, repurposed chic) makes you very excited once you walk in. The restaurant is quite large and can accommodate large parties.
Our server was very nice but unaware of the me menu and items on it. So when we wanted to order the build your own bloody, she didn’t know what I was referring to and then said it wasn’t available. It took a bit to be greeted by our server when we first sat down (about ten min maybe more). A little, «I’ll be right with you» would have been nice, so, that way we know you know about us.
Salt and pepper on the table as well as steak knives would have been nice for our orders. Cutting the steak and various meat items was doable with a butter knife but not optimal.
Once the food and service come up, I’m sure the place would be packed. It would be the kind of place you want to be seen if their food and drink were better than average.

Came here for a complimentary meal — 2 courses which usually retails for £10 I understand.
Opted for the satay chicken followed by fish and chips — both were excellent. Service was friendly and prompt but, to be fair, the restaurant was quiet at this time.
Décor was decent and there seemed a good atmosphere in the bar area with some cocktail making class.

The place was well decorated. Location is good, near many offices. Ideal for a drink after work. Lunch menu 2 courses for £10. Not bad deal. Very good service

Came here for breakfast. What a mistake!
Nice enough inside. Service was ok, but not exactly going the extra mile.
Had the £7.95 «Proper London Fully Loaded». It was the most pitiful cooked breakfast I’ve had anywhere. The smallest piece of black pudding. A piece of rind with little meat making up the bacon. All served in a skillet making it hard to really eat. Far too much style of substance.
If in the area and you are after a cooked breakfast, then I’d recommend walking over to Smithfields and going to Smiths.

Good location, friendly service and great presentation & price but just lacking that ‘spark’!
Came for the excellent 2 courses for £10 deal and was impressed with the value for money. However, the service was sooo slow. We booked and still had to wait 40 minutes for a drink. The waitress was very apologetic and gave us some free nibbles which was great except we were in a slight rush. When the food came it was basic but delicious.
Because the deal was so good I can barely complain but in a place as big as London with so many bars and restaurants it’s hard to say if I’ll return!

Nope. I’m afraid the Happenstance fails for me. Food was grim — I had the Beef noodle salad. The noodles were slimey, tasted yuck and smelt strange. I don’t think they were fresh. Which left the beef strips & sesame and two leaves of pak choy. For £10+ they’re having a laugh.
If you go, go to see the décor or the loos. Yup. That’s it for this place.

Great location in the city and the décor is fantastic. Service isn’t great — everything seemed to take forever (I had to wait 10 minutes before someone came over to take my party to a table. There were only 2 other small groups of people…)
Might check out the other Drake and Morgan locations because they all look fun. An okay place to go for food and drinks with friends, but not a fav.

Because of its proximity to my workplace, I’ve been back a couple of times. One time I had a terrible stomachache after the seafood special at lunch, so that was disappointing. And second time I met a friend, and the staff sat us on two different tables; it took us 10 minutes to realise we were both in the restaurant but opposite sides. I had the burger again on the most recent visit and found that the patties were less tasty than I had remembered.