Firstly – what an outrageously beautiful venue! There are very few buildings that have real wow factor but the Royal Exchange has it by the bucket load. Beautiful boutique shops surrounding a central open space that accommodates the Grand Cafe, endless height to the glass roof and glorious balconies from where you look down onto the proceedings below. Such a shame then that the venue was so cold! It was late February when I went and granted it was cold outside, but apparently the under floor heating just doesn't really work and the venue is simply too large to be heated successfully. The result was that I had lunch wearing a coat, scarf and wishing I had brought gloves and a woolly hat as well! No doubt in the summer it will be great, but wasn't impressed! The other stand out thing was the sheer lack of service. Disappointingly, I was sat in the cafe for almost twenty minutes before I could catch the attention of a nonplussed waiter and then he showed no interest in the fact I had no menus nor ordered a drink. Still, the cold had set in and I was determined to get at least a cup of tea alongside my grapefruit juice (which was freshly squeezed and lovely incidentally). Food menu duly delivered I decided on the open lobster and avocado sandwich as I was after a light lunch. And a light lunch is exactly what I got – although the taste and presentation was very good, the amount of lobster I got in the sandwich wouldn't even have moved a set of scales. Miniscule amounts of lobster, contrasted by an over-sized mound of slightly under-ripe avocado. For £18 or thereabouts, it was a serious disappointment in the value stakes. To make my ‘light’ lunch a little heavier, I then ordered a seafood platter for one – oysters, prawns, langoustines and dressed crab. Now this was more like it – fresh rock oysters, lovely prawns, langoustines that if I was being picky were a little overcooked, and lovely crab. Service was still appalling though! Average at best

The Royal Exchange is right at the heart of the City of London. Indeed, the setting of Conran's Grand Cafe & Bar could not be much more imposing. It is a very grand place to meet, whether for a drink, a meal or a party.

Note that the central courtyard fills up very quickly indeed, but if you go up to the mezzanine floor, there is a lively bar on the left and an enticing restaurant on the right (assuming that you enter the building from the front).

Although it is near impossible to book a table at Grand Cafe & Bar, good timing helps! If you want lunch, in particular, make sure that you come early or later. The Grand Cafe & Bar tends to get packed out around 1pm.

The food, however, can be rather good. The company is sometimes even better, particularly if c shows up!

Last time I came to Grand Café you couldn’t book. This is really annoying. They said we’d probably get a table, so we chanced it and obviously it was really busy. We ended up searching for somewhere else after waiting 40 minutes and in the end just going home and getting a takeaway. Now I’m loath to go back there again.
Just let us book Grand Café – it’s that simple!