On Saturday, September 10th, i and a colleague of mine decided to go to Garufa restaurant after visiting Emirates stadium. Not many restaurants around this area so we used google maps and picked Garufa as our destination.
At first, the place was almost empty at 5.30 pm which was alerting bearing in mind the lack of proper restaurants in the area. We were told by a small bold guy with a very prominent forehead that "we are totally booked, we only have a table that is going to be occupied at 7.00". 1.5 hours is plenty to eat a horse, we said, and the guy unable to find another argument let us in. Though the table was half in the kitchen half in the toilet area, we agreed due to being hungry. Going a little forward, when we left the place at 6.30 it was as vacant as it was at 5.30.
As for the food, the steaks are overcooked and the side dishes are ridiculously small. “Esparragos” - a tiny piece of bread with 2 small overboiled asparagus sprouts and a fried egg on top of it - all served on a tiny saucer plate. Together with Esparragos the “Bife Ancho” 225gr was ordered – the real Argentinian beef rib-eye steak which appeared to be an overcooked sinewy burnt piece of meat. Though it’s not the case, the prices seemed to be above what is usually paid for a way higher quality steaks at Smollensky's at Canary Wharf, etc.
The jewel of this place is the level of service you receive if you don’t book a table in advance. Moreover when I asked for a receipt second time after 20 min of waiting I was told to relax and was given a receipt with wrong dishes 2 times. After that a proposition of “calling the police” followed from the small cheeky bold guy which I gladly accepted though didn’t get any.
In summary, I warn everybody who is lucky to get to London for business or leisure purposes. The place has a nice concept of Argentinian cuisine in a “pub and sandwich” city, but an extremely inferior client service and low quality of food.

The food was good but the service was the worst I have ever had in any restaurant in the world. It is the first time I have never left a tip ever to any restaurant.

I will never go again and at £85 for 2 people I expect not to have to ask to be served but the staff... very bad.

Went to garufa for dinner last and was very impressed. The steak was seasoned and cooked to perfection, it's probably the best steak I have eaten in this country.

The service was fantastic, we had a very friendly waiter and didn't have to wait long for our food either.

I was slightly disappointed with their chorizo and have had better elsewhere. But if it's steak your after and a nice glass of argentinian wine they you can't go wrong with garufa