Hells Kitchen... not even the Devil would have been happy to dine in this atmosphere-less hole... though he may have sent some souls here as an eternal punishment.After much anticipation and excitement at trying the food at this "Gordon Ramsay" tagged establishment, I must say I was very, very disappointed on all levels:1) Service - standing at the (relatively un-busy) bar for 5 minutes only to be greeted by a bar maid with a face more sour than an out-of-date lemon, lime and Haribo Tangfastic conglomerate, who would have rather chopped off her leg than retrieve us a wine menu, we were finally served by a gentlemen who quite clearly would have preferred to be out with his mates at a better bar than this one. 2) Food - where do I start? The Brie, Apple and Walnut salad or should I say Raisin and Lettuce on a plate contained NO brie!! Unless you include the deep fried bread crumb / batter covered cheesy air. The Asda wannabe burger was housed in a bun crispier than a 60 yr old Essex sun worshipper in Marbella passed out on the beach for 4 days and accompanied by her clippings passed off as chips!!3) Drinks - I had to clean off my Guinness with a napkin - enough said!!All in all a very unpleasant experience, except for the excitement of the moving bridge and passing boats and drunk friends!!Mr Ramsay I ask that you please properly police those using your name and sort yourself out before crossing the pond to sling mud at others!!I want my money back...

Went to the narrow yesterday as I'd heard about this beautifully restored building with views across the Thames.
Having already been to the Devonshire in Chiswick I thought this would be a safe bet. I'm sorry to say that this was not only a bad Gordon Ramsay experience but the pub was not charming or rustic but more like a cheap chain pub you'd only to use on a road trip to sneak and use the toilets.

To begin with we sat at the sticky bar that was covered for about 1.5metres long and 30cm thick with dirty glasses. We asked for 2 Leafs from the unsmiling bar tender, he proceeded to pour two pints into normal English pint glasses, we asked for the Leffe glasses and said that we only wanted the 'standard' half pint...he looked at us as though we'd just called his sister a dirty wh*re. This would be ok but this is a Gordon Ramsay pub so expected better service and knowledge at this point.

We then proceeded to the 1980s style glass patio "wrap around window" area as sitting at the dirty bar with the miserable bartender would be on par with swapping our afternoon drink with a funeral. We noted that quite a few of the tables had dirty glasses, crumbs, sticky patches... I suppose this goes in keeping with "effortless appeal of the bar".

The chips we ordered eventually came, sitting there lonely and undressed on a table with no condiments, cutlery or napkins. We found some pepper and salt and asked the waitress for some mayonnaise; ok it's only chips and mayo but again this is meant to be a Gordon Ramsay gastro pub. The waitress came back with what looked like a ladle of warm coagulating mayo on a side plate (erm...presentation? a little pot? some cutlery? even a napkin please? anyone??). This was too much and not only made us laugh but also nearly made us sick and unable to eat for the rest of the day. I'm also sorry to say that the verdict on the chips was not great, they were slightly hard and the fat on them slightly old.

Maybe we got them on a bad day.

DON'T EAT HERE. I can't see how what I experienced was anything like the reviews. Bar service was slow. We were seated 25 mins late after having to remind the head waiter, who had clearly forgotten who we were.

Our waitress only grunted and was rarely to be seen. My starter - the duck salad with spring veg was some dry slices of duck with half a carrot and some pickled onions.

The whole thing tasted of vinegar, I had to leave it. My friend's bubble and squeak, was passable, but really a breakfast dish.

The only meat option was pork belly, so we both had it. It came with mash. It was stodgy and bland. We both also had the banoffee pie.

My friend's pastry was so hard he also sent it back. I wanted to order more wine to dull the pain, but our waitress still wasn't to be seen.

Eventually she took away our puddings, offering tea & coffee, almost unaware of the fact we hadn't eaten with a grunt at my explanation of the pudings.

A while later the head waiter came over and said he would knock off the puddings from the bill. Our coffee order came with one drink short - we decided not to bring it up due to the fact the whole meal had taken 3 1/2 hours.

When the bill came, they had charged us double so we had to send it back. Nice view - but there are tons of other places along the river there where you can get that. Want pub food? Go to a pub and not something trying to be one.

We had a lovely dinner here on Sunday night. The food was wonderful, our Brazilian waiter was very cute and so helpful and I thought the view of the Thames was brilliant. It's not the cheapest of places but I know of many worse gastropubs that charge the same price or more! Highly recommended.

Food was too salty, my ham and chicken pie was really just a soup of oily chicken stock and you had to spoon out the bits of meat.
Reasonably priced for a gastropub, but nothing special. I hate to use the phrase, 'i could have done this smoked salmon on toast at home', but it's true.
They were in a bit of a hurry to get the production line going. The food came so quickly that we'd only drunk less than half a bottle of wine before we were paying the bill.
A lovely pub to sit in the summer on the decking with a beer, but the food was unspectacular.

The Narrow was poor. Very poor. Tried to book and the booking line was closed. Went to The Narrow, and was told it was fully booked for the next two months, and I couldn't make a reservation in house, I would have to phone their number.


Sorry Gordon, but alienating locals is not the way to run a local pub. Have fun with the bridge and tunnel crowd, but the locals will dine elsewhere.

The Narrow was okay. It was just over £40.00 a head for a 3 course meal, two bottles of wine and a couple of beers. The decor is not that different. For a place that's been shut down for two months, the changes to the casual observer are largely cosmetic, although the reduced number of tables certainly allows for more standing room (both inside and out) and the lack of smoke is a welcomed change to the old environment.



The beers were good with a good selection, although most are bottled rather than cask, and the wine selection was reasonably priced. There are a couple of biggies if you wanted to splash, but most around £20.00 mark.


The food was reasonable. It does old fashioned wholesome recipes of the sort that gave British cuisine a bad name, but it's been done pretty well. The pea and ham soup was excellent, as was the potted crab for starters, but the veggie options were poor.



The mains were pretty good. The boiled beef was excellent, if a little salty, the pork cheeks were also done very well as was the fish and chips with mushy peas, but the chips were disappointingly normal. They should have gone with fat chip shop style chips for the full East End experience.


The deserts were excellent. The ginger rhubarb crumble was awesome (by far the best choice), the gypsy tart was light and lemony and the cheesecake was good, if a little heavy after all the other food, and the selection of English cheeses were traditionally good and stinky.



It's a pretty good attempt. I'd go back to The Narrow, but I'd probably go with the bar menu which has a great selection of beers, as well as some of the menu stars including the soup as well as some old fashioned pub treats such as a pot of shrimps.

The Narrow is certainly getting some tongues wagging but you know this place is going to be full of out of towners for a good few months. Hopefully us locals will be able to negotiate our way through the media circus and actually get to try it out one day!

I passed The Narrow the at the weekend and from what i saw it looked pretty nice. Does anybody know what kind of prices Mr Ramsay is charging though? I'd be so annoyed if The Narrow is going to be really expensive - it is only a gastro-pub after all.