Hayward Gallery Cafe in Lambeth

Siento tener que ser negativo. Vine como un placer para mí mismo - para ver la última exposición y tomar una copa de vino alrededor de la 1 pm. La persona en la cafetería era perfectamente agradable - pero me temo que el entorno y el costo son una gran decepción. Me senté en el conservatorio de vidrio que es miserable de mirar. Parece azulejos de asfalto negros en el piso y muebles de plástico negros no descriptivos. Si quieres una vista del tráfico en el puente - este es el lugar para venir. Podrían hacer que este espacio se vea mucho mejor con diferentes pisos y algunas plantas. O tener muebles diferentes. Todo se siente un poco perezoso sin preocuparse por la experiencia del cliente.

The service here was great although the prices are expensive. One of the cakes was good, the other not so much. Great views of the brutalist architecture of the South Bank Centre.

Solo quería una parada rápida y esto parecía interesante. Siempre vale la pena detenerse en el café Monmouth, por lo que es el producto adecuado en el momento adecuado. Un pastel de carne picada no demasiado dulce excelente para complementar la humedad de un café expreso doble. Los baños unisex eran grandes y limpios. La estrella de la visita fue definitivamente una pequeña selección de dibujos animados antiguos que se muestran en monitores individuales. ¡A quién le importa cuántos años tienes! Buen servicio. Bien hecho.

Sándwich de atún realmente sabroso en un entorno agradable. Durante el día, buenas vistas a la orilla sur, al río y al puente de Waterloo

Un pequeño café inmemorable con la excepción del diseño arquitectónico de las ventanas de vidrio redondeadas. El té descafeinado Clipper fue terrible (como siempre) y las tazas con aislamiento de plástico no son atractivas, aunque mantienen las bebidas calientes durante mucho tiempo. El menú es extremadamente pequeño y está dirigido a aquellos que aman los productos de pan tostado o pastel. La única razón para venir aquí es la proximidad a la exposición de abajo.

Charging £2.75 for a plastic mug of tea. Just a teabag in the cup not even a tea pot. I know it is expensive in London but this is as they say taking the piss.

Well, if you need refreshments while visiting a gallery they have you by the short and curlies don't they? It was a nice coffee shop, but £3 for a tiny coffee was a tad extortionate. The cakes left a lot to be desired too. I think they got stuck in a yuppy timewarp.

We enjoyed a coffee, and various cakes etc here in the circular glass conservatory which over looks Waterloo Bridge, and the Thames on a fairly quiet Saturday morning before going to visit the gallery itself. Very pleasant staff, and good service. Nice to relax away from the crowds around the London Eye.

My friend and I had the cheese plate and the veggie plate, and both were really good (loved the lightly pickled auberbine cubes) - the cheese plate was so good that we ordered a second one. I was surprised by the lukewarm reviews: we were happy with what we ate, and actually quite impressed by the cheeses, especially the sharp, crumbly cheddar, which is often bland and plastic.

We enjoyed the circular glass conservatory with views over Waterloo Bridge and passed a pleasant enough hour or so there. Basic fare and nothing special which is a shame given the venue. Polite service but the whole thing is low key and they could make more of the good location and spacious cafe.

It looks really nice as you go in but they don't want people using laptops or other devices & so the place was empty. The food is very expensive for what it is & they lost my order & after reminding them twice & received my very small open sandwich after all my lunch companions had finished eating. I was offered a drink or cake while I was waiting but it was too late by then.

It's hard to understand why a) The Hayward gallery disposed of the wonderful Concrete Cafe & Bar and replaced it with a shop and b) inserted the most awfully run Cafe upstairs to replace it. As a regular to the Hayward for over 20 years I've enjoyed both the Gallery and the various eateries surrounding it, in fact so much so, that I was going to bring a date here for our first meeting yesterday and incorporate it with a trip to the Gursky exhibition that's currently on in the Gallery (thankfully having had this firsthand experience alone today - I'm extremely grateful we hadn't and fortuitously had already rescheduled). The Dan Graham, Waterloos Sunset Pavilion, still stands, but feels utterly underused with a few tables scattered around it's edges and a couple of chairs surrounding each as it was previously. It is, as always, cold in the winter, but one hopes they will utilise the space better in the summer months. It's also hard to understand why they've left the headphones and TV screens all playing Cartoon Network Cartoons (unless of course all of this is the artist's requirements - which makes the location of the cafe here - even more annoying). The whole set up of ordering at the counter is completely wrong for something with this layout and which gets as busy as it does. People just coming in for a coffee could find themselves stuck in a queue for people ordering a full meal (which in this day and age, requires a full length debate about whether certain foods contain Gluten or Dairy, often by foreign tourists who are asking for translations and all by people who haven't seen a menu before arriving at the till). The whole process of ordering at the till & taking a number board to your table, would be much better served with table service for food and coffee/drinks only orders taken at the counter, especially considering the small number of covers in the establishment (approx 50) and it's overall size. The acoustics here are abhorrent and with just a few people chatting quietly, the cacophony of sound will soon become unpleasant. Think a busy pub on a Friday night without the alcohol, not really the best environment to reflect on the pleasures of an art exhibition. The regular bullet shot sound of the tamp being cracked down on the coffee machine to empty it's previous contents every few minutes wraps up securely any hope of reflective peace & quiet in here. The coffees, teas & mocha, all come in at what now has become the standard prices for such offerings pretty much anywhere in London (between £2.50 - £3.50). The food prices, are as you'd expect considering it's location, slightly expensive, soup & roll coming in at £6 (the cheapest savoury on offer is the Asian Broth which comes without a roll at £5 - the breakfast pot of Blood Orange & Pomegranate seeds with rosemary honey appearing the best value at £2.50) When I was there, there were no lunch time or coffee & cake offers, though would expect them in time. The Royal Baking Powder tins (which actually contain brown sugar) were a nice artistic touch on the tables but confused many of the customers who went to the counter asking for sugar. It was also a flawed idea because whilst there is a spoon in the sugar pot, you're not provided with a spoon with your drink. so you're either left to go back to the counter to get a spoon or make wet the one that goes back in the sugar (and seriously nobody wants that). I had gone into eat, but having had to wait 10 minutes in the queue (for literally 2 customers who were queuing as pairs debating what food they wanted), decided on a solitary Mocha instead, they use Monmouth Coffee here (so felt like a bit of sacrilege adding the chocolate), which was perfectly acceptable. Ironically, since the refurbishment of the Hayward, the Southbank Centre seems to have changed their WiFi Supplier and now Google won't let me get on the system as they've not got an up to date certificate on their Splashpage (again, pleased to have only ordered a coffee as I was planning to work). But the alcohol offering is the biggest let down here. Cocktails come in at £10 and a standard glass of House Red or White Wine £6.50 (175ml) or £8.00 (250Ml) or an astounding £25 per bottle. If you want to enjoy some bubbles whilst watching that sunset over Waterloo Bridge you'll be paying £45, but that's for Prosecco.... let me say that again PROSECCO, rather than champagne, which isn't even offered here. Overall, a huge disappointment. I loved the vibe of Concrete Cafe and it's much missed, this new offering is pretty much the worst of all public gallery offerings but still run by Company of Cooks (I was expecting it to have changed to Benugo considering it's fall in standards) who ran Concrete for years. Manager/Female Senior Staff Member Rae (or Ray?) does her best and on my visit was pleasant & helpful, but is seemingly let down by her team, logistics and the space. I suspect that people will continue to use this venue when they use the Gallery (Be WARNED BOTH GALLERY & CAFE ARE CLOSED ALL DAY TUESDAY for some explicable reason), but I'd avoid it like the plague. Sadly there's not much left of any quality in the area, having been decimated by the chains (Giraffe, Strada, Eat etc.) but if you want something quirky cross Hungerford Bridge to Gordon's Wine Bar (though that's now struggling under it's own success since the birth of Social Media) or head to the Oxo Tower for the views or if you need a bit of solace the National Theatre's ground floor space is usually quiet regardless of numbers in there. Concrete Cafe is a sad loss to the area, though I know wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but that was kind of it's point, like the Brutalist Architecture it was emdedded! RIP.