The Coal Shed, One Tower Bridge

Hi Gary, just went to The Coal Shed Tower Bridge. This was booked a month in advance for a very special 70th birthday (which will never happen again – so very important to us as a family!). 6 of us attended on 9th August 7:30pm.
The restaurant was very dark and extremely hot, no aircon. We asked to be moved to the terrace, we were told it was closed, (it was empty on our arrival, but people were being seated on the terrace a little later). The only good starter was the pork belly, all others ordered were tasteless, the scallops were bitter. 5 of us ordered the ribeye, all were extremely thin, 1 was under cooked, 2 were medium on the edges and over cooked in the middle and 1 had too much gristle and was inedible. The ribeyes cut and quality were the poorest any of us had ever experienced (especially for the price compared to Hawksmoor, Gouchos and even Miller & Carter). Our waiter did move us, but only to another hot uncomfortable part of the restaurant. The acoustics/environment was very noisy even though there weren’t many people seated inside. The seasonal greens consisted of only cabbage, bland and had no taste, the chips tasted like standard oven chips, the cauliflower cheese had no flavour. The greeter and waiter did smile, but all other staff that served us our food were very sour faced. The kitchen staff changed during our ordering and they were dressed very casually compared to the day kitchen staff, which we thought was strange. The waiter presented a special birthday plate, with a rock hard chocolate truffle and half a strawberry, it would have been better if he hadn’t of bothered, was insulting really. For almost £100 per person this experience was shameful. Nothing was said at the time as we didn’t want to spoil a very important 70th birthday, which we were trying to salvage. The worst and poorest quality steaks ever!