The Builders Arms in Kensington and Chelsea - Phone Number, Reservations, Reviews

Excellent food; slow service. We were seated by the manager at the back of the dining room and largely forgotten about. No orders taken for 20+ mins. Once ordered, food took 45 mins to come. Waitresses were polite, but inefficient in service. Expect more for a 15% service charge. Food was great though.

bar was very shiny , staff lovely and beer was very cold

🚇 South Kensington 🍺 £7.90 Stiegl Weisse The Builders Arms is located in a quiet residential street in well-to-do Chelsea. The nearest Tube is South Kensington, it’s a ten minute walk to get here. This pub dates from 1841 built by a local builder called George Todd. It is said he built the pub to service the needs of the masons that built nearby St. Luke’s Church. In 1884 the pub served as the Tap House for Matthews & Cannings Anchor Brewery which stood next door. The brewery was taken over by Whitbread in 1899 with brewing continuing until 1907. Today, this pub is part of the @cubitthouse stable of pubs. This is a traditionally decorated two roomed Gastro with a refined upscale feel. The bar area is located on the right hand side and has a good size servery. Opposite the servery is a panelled wall with a long drinking ledge plus a few stools. As you head further back, the bar area opens out to a cosy space with a welcoming corner fireplace. On the left hand side of the pub is a smart dining area which has ample seating and some wonderful old world signage. The beer selection is premium continental, London craft, Guinness and two cask ales. I decided on a pint of Stiegl Weisse, my pint was excellent, priced point was expensive. The food menu is elevated pub classics and Mediterranean inspired dishes, Fish & Chips costs £21, Roasts are available on a Sunday. I arrived just after 5pm on a rainy Friday afternoon in March. The bar area was busy with a mixture of locals, some were wearing hoodies, some were wearing black ties and orf to a posh do. The atmosphere was laidback and local, there was a lovely ambiance to the place. The service was great, the team were friendly and courteous. Even though this pub has Gastropub credentials, there is plenty of space to come and enjoy a beer. I loved the atmosphere, the beer selection is great, if a little pricey and the surroundings wonderfully traditional. @thebuildersarmschelsea is a great place for a posh pint, one for your list. ℹ️ Info correct on visiting 01.03.24

Excellent bar, ambiance off the charts. Kitchen, culinary revelation — the mash soul hugging creamy as a cloud

We celebrated our wedding reception here after our ceremony at the Chelsea Old Town Hall. We had the back area of the pub, which gave it a semi-private feel. The feasting menu was absolutely delicious. Can't rate the food highly enough. Everything was great, from the staff, the service and the ambience. Thank you!

A delightful pub on a quiet Chelsea street. My family and I enjoyed a tasty dinner. Recommended!

Lovely pub in Chelsea. Food was delicious and staff were so friendly and helpful. Highly recommended !

We just had drinks. A really nice pub.

Excellent food and attentive service, lovely little pub for a weekend lunch

Dom was amazing!!! Great vibe, good drinks, happy days!

I enjoyed Pimentos Padron, fantastic steak with frites, as well as a cider and Pinot Noir. The wine was indeed lovely, but definitely not worth £16—though I chose it, so that’s on me! I dined by the bar near the TV section, where, surprise, there is no table service. Imagine my shock when I was slapped with a 15% service charge! I even double-checked with the barman, thinking I must be in some parallel universe. Just to clarify, you have to order from the bar yourself. It felt wrong and deceiving. Is there a limit to this nonsense?

Drink prices unreasonable. Ok perhaps I'm not posh enough to drink here. Came to meet friends. Ordered a large glass of wine and a beer. 25.50.....seriously? Meanwhile they have updated the bar seating area. Wooden benches without cushions.....

The fish and chips here are just amazing as is the service. So accommodating and welcoming for a family with young children

In need of decorating, just looking drab and colourless. Food was delicious and well presented. Staff were very friendly and helpful.

A good local bar, great for going with a young, cheerful group to drink a couple of beers, maybe some wine, mostly just young people, but I wouldn’t expect to have a tasty meal here

Excellent service and food, highly recommend for a quality date night

Great place for lunch with friends

An excellent neighbourhood pub serving first class wines.

Ridiculously overpriced wine list, cheap bad wines marked up to over £60. Bad staff, awful live music. Overall terrible experience

My friends and I went to this pub last weekend and we were delighted!! The staff were so nice - our waitress was called Selin and she was always smiley and happy to help!! We really enjoyed our drinks and our food. I had one of the best cheeseburgers I've ever had in London and the chips were delicious as well. We will come back for sure!!

One of the best Sunday lunches I've had out recently. Excellent roast beef and sides. Good drinks. Dog friendly.

Something has changed - and not for good - since we last came here. My husband and I booked for a relaxed mid-week drink & dinner. Arrived to find it almost empty with terrible over-bright lighting, awful loud (tinny) 80’s music (we left to Back in Black blaring out at 9.30…! Service was awful & so was the food ordered steak which arrived with horse-radish - and apparently they had no mustard. We had a couple of drinks each and one course and were charged just under £100/head. Wouid not go back, unless something seriously changes….

Great little pub, food was good and a great selection of drinks.

A favorite for my friends and I. The Builders Arms Chelsea is a great place for drinks. The beers and cocktails are amazing.

Exceptional place for drinks. The wine, beers and cocktails are really good. The food was amazing too. The Builders Arms is fantastic.

Update 06/03/2024: A shame, because despite promising to sort out the ladies bathrooms, they have not. One star deducted. Folks, it’s not hard to carry out a basic repair, and women shouldn’t be risking falling off/into a toilet. This is such a lovely pub, tucked out of the way, respectable. It’s quiet and busy in equal parts and feels sophisticated. However, they could really up the ante by sorting out the bathrooms. There’s no reason a pub this nice should have ladies toilet seats that are so unfixed and askew. It takes 3 minutes and a wrench! I’d do it myself for a glass of wine.

Average local pub with the bonus of a log fireplace. Not many seats for the drinking area but a deal for an afternoon chat.

Nice pub but the pie was terrible. Very dry and tasteless despite the gravy. The crust was hard. Very dissapointed and would avoid ordering the pie.

Lovely pub and staff, loving the re-decoration. Got 4 stars instead of 5 because of the 15% “optional” service charge. It’s a local joint and not a Mayfair restaurant.

Great pub in a quiet corner of Chelsea. Wooden decoration, excellent choice of food and drinks, very kind, attentive, smiling staff. Not to be missed.

We had the great time here. Such a nice atmosphere and the bartender Jordy was very friendly and helpful :)

great pub in a small street behind King's Road. attentive and courteous service, good food, in the pub tradition but with some variations, excellent choice of wines and beers. only flaw: really very noisy…

Great pub restaurant. Nice spot to grab drinks. The atmosphere is really amazing. The building is so nice.

Unfortunately the staff were rude as soon as we entered and ordered a drink. They refused to serve my friend who had American identification. Fortunately there are lots of local friendly pubs around, I would advise avoiding this one. The Sydney arms is 10 seconds walk away and a much friendlier vibe!

Bonne découverte que ce pub, un super cadre, service est accueil très bien. Nous avons très bien mangé, les frites étaient excellente (pas grasse), c’est une mention particulière !!!

I ordered the pie of the day which was steak and ale for £22. What I received was a small individual pie with 1 tablespoon mashed potato. The pie was quite small, not very full and the sauce was thin. Meat was not very succulent. The pasty was wafer think and had not risen. I left hungry and needed to eat again on the way home. Otherwise good atmosphere and good service.

I ordered the pie of the day which was steak and ale for £22. What I received was a small individual pie with 1 tablespoon mashed potato. The pie was quite small, not very full and the sauce was thin. Meat was not very succulent. The pasty was wafer think and had not risen. I left hungry and needed to eat again on the way home. Otherwise good atmosphere and good service.

Great pub, however the drinks are expensive!!

Great proper central London pub.

Not sure what has happened to this once delightful Gastro pub, but the food was utterly dismal. Had to return our soup. Mussels were not available despite being offered on the menu for starter and main courses, chips were small and soggy and the burgers cooked to within an inch of their lives. Hugely disappointing. The food used to be so good. Sadly, Will not eat here again. Staff nice and friendly and good wines, but food is a no no.

Went to builders arms for a roast yesterday. The service wasn’t great, but even worse than that was the food. It arrived cold, VERY cold. The horseradish and gravy had no flavour and to be honest it was the worst roast I have ever eaten in London. Sorry for the harsh review but it really was a disappoint. When you go to a restaurant to pay for food you expect the food to at least be hot and the service team to be on it.

We really liked this pub. After walking around we came across it and were pleased to get a table.. We ordered sme simple food and a bottle of wine. Everything was reasonably priced and tasty. My friend didn't like one of the orders and they quickly charged it. Only comment would be that I was disappointed to see the toilets weren't checked throughout the 2 hours we were there and they needed some attention!

Lovely pub. Always buzzing and full on a midweek to Friday evening. Looks smart and service is efficient.

Absolutely delicious!! The best dinner I’ve had out in years - the bitter leaf salad was so good I ordered seconds

We had a table at 15.45 Sunday 5th November when the restaurant was half empty yet it took around 45 minutes to get very simple starters (oysters and a sausage roll), the main course then took a similar amount of time to arrive. I had the Roast Beef which consisted of two small pieces of beef, a Yorkshire pudding, and a cremated piece of cabbage - I wish I had taken a picture of it because it made no sense at all and was inedible. I don't think it had been boiled but just stuck on a grill until it was black. To make matters worse potatoes and veg have to be bought separately which aside from being annoying makes the overall meal criminally expensive. We witnessed the look of other customers receiving their meals with puzzled faces. Our friends ordered fish with seasonal greens - greens that didn't arrive until after the fish had been eaten. The service was also non-existent - we had to go to the bar to order a second bottle of wine and there was no check-back to see if the meals were too standard and if we wanted anything else. Again, no mention of desserts or coffees when we finished. Of course there was hefty tip added to the bill which we should have asked to have been removed but by that time we just wanted the experience over and done with.

Visited for a Sunday roast. £25 per person for 2 slices of not great quality beef, a burnt Yorkshire and gravy each! That’s all it comes with so you need to pay for all the sides on top. Cauliflower cheese strangely didn’t taste of cheese but very creamy. Nice waitresses. Please do a roast with all the trimmings as every other pub does!

The pub has always been a reliable Chelsea favourite. No longer. Four of us had the chicken pie. Completely tasteless as well as having two bones and gristle. £40 for two without any side vegetables. FOOD TERRIBLE and extremely disappointing, including tasteless vegetables. Then a ludicrous climate surcharge and a 15% service charge. What a joke. Won’t be going back.

The pub was almost empty, but the struggled to offer us a table saying they were "fully booked" at 3pm for lunch. They offered us a horrible table that we refused to take, and by miracle after insisting we ended getting a table and while we had lunch the rest of the tables were not all of them taken? Service was average. We only ordered a "quite expensive" Sunday roast. Food was ok, nothing special. I had to stand up to take a children's high chair after asking twice. My surprise came when ordering the bill, and we wee charged a 15% of service fee?? This was outrageous, firstly, way higher than service fee in any restaurant. I am starting getting annoyed when some are charging 13.5%, but in a pub??? An 15%?? and with the rubbish service provided? Apparently this is a global strategy for all the pubs that operated in this group. and they pay their staff with that, which is shameful. I claimed to eliminate the service which they did. and just paid a 12.5% only because i felt sorry for the waitress who brought us a single main course to our table, and a bottle of wine, but apparently that is part of her core income. Not great. Not sure if we will come back, and we have been regular customers for a long time.

Great food and ambiance. Superb service despite being quite busy. The pinot noir wine was amazing value. Pulled pork starters are amazing. Tiramisu just ok.

Really nice food and service. The place is beautiful and cozy. We had a great time!

Nice and different menu including steak tartar, pimiento padron & fritti zucchini. Delicious! We were very well looked after by the two Ladies working the pub that day (Aug 31st) Loved it 🤩

Nice wine, and an even better outdoor seating area.

Delicious ales. London Lush and one other

I was expecting more from a pub in Chelsea, expensive food for average/bad quality. Big tartar (18 pounds) was a joke... fish and chips very very average and Sunday roasts...

A fine pub but, perhaps better described as a restaurant, quiet, refined and welcoming. There are a couple of cask ales on offer together with a fine keg offering. An enjoyable pint of Stiegl, cold to the bone. Gentle and serene are my words for this place.

Куски жаркого было не прожевать. Картошка была обжарена по всей видимости несколько раз и ножом даже не разрезалась. Пиво вкусное. Персонал вежливый.

Pretty decent pub, interior a bit excessively designed. Unfortunately they charge 5 pounds, yes 5, for a bag of crisps. Pretty criminal I would suggest.

Cute pub, slightly posh. Food is pretty expensive but not particularly outstanding.

One of the classic Chelsea pubs. Used to spend a lot of time here many moons ago. Good to see it hasn't changed much (aside from a bit of a "posh up" as seems to be mandatory for all pubs in London... Farrow & Ball green paint etc). Round was predictably pricey but worth it for the people watching Chips looked incredible (but we didn't try - just oggled everyone else)

Very good beers and variety of all drinks.Elegant pub.

Good food, good service and overall you feel like the dining and culinary experience has been a good one. Tom is a good guy and deeply cares about the service he provides. Thank you

Friendly staff, I must say very stylish

Gorgeous pub, amazing team behind the bar...

First visit near workplace. 2 bottles of wine to share between 5. Quite busy Friday night. Toilets in basement. Restaurant half of pub.

Great service, delicious food, cozy atmosphere

Unfortunately the reviews were true. We found the staff to be very friendly but the food was not good, especially for the price. The roast lamb was chewy and the pasta was also chewy - felt like it had been pre cooked and sat around for ages. Inside was a strange layout. We would not return.

Very nice food and great service. The burguer was cooked perfectly and the tortellinis were delicious (I was told). The lemon tart was sublime! Would recommend the pub. Maybe a little price but it's not too different to other restaurants in the Chelsea área.

Great food. Top class service. What more could one possibly ask for?

You know you're getting an experience when its only locals and the waitress doesn't even ask what you want...you're getting the fish and chips of course with the lemon round tied in a bow...and they are oh sooooo good!! Giant portions and the tartar sauce was heavenly..

Excellent pub sur une jolie place parallèle à King’s Road. Cuisine sympa autant que le personnel. Très typique British mais excellente ambiance, peut-être un peu bruyante. Bons vins, prix corrects un peu chers … mais c’est Londres !!

Spend a few hours with Mrs M here last Saturday afternoon. It was like being in a ‘country pub’ despite being a few hundred yards from Kings Road. Just the best staff, beer and company. Well done Builders Arms team!

Massively overpriced, scruffy, unprofessional and totally lacking in any atmosphere whatsoever! Dismal and expensive experience.

Waited at the bar while the barman stood in front of me and polished glasses without any acknowledgment that I was waiting. Then went on to serve an order in the restaurant. 5 mins later he took my order for drinks, £18.50 for a medium wine and a average pint. Poor service and astronomical prices

Been in this Pub couple of times with friend and family and always good experience. Atmosphere is lovely, staff is friendly and reasonable prices. ⭐️ This time it was two of us, ordered scotch egg 👌🏼 , two mains 👍🏼 👍🏼 (half chicken and baked aubergine) and a salad on a side which was fresh ✅ + 2 glass of rose. Only one thing we didn’t enjoy for £15 was the artichoke with couscous. For such dish and presentation, it should be no more than £8. All in all we spend £111 which for 2ppl is alright price considering location and quality of ingredients used. Please be aware that now it’s 15% service charge..

Great place to have a proper drink and food. The service is very good and happy and friendly staff.

Very little to recommend this pub. Pricier than last year. Service usually terrible, indifferent sultry staff who all look like they dont want to be there, few smiles, confused, slow, often serving the wrong people first, standing around wiping glasses whilst 15 people wait at the bar, one real ale only, usual high mark ups on wines…shame as new owners since end of last year and this was my local

Popped in for a drink yesterday and to watch the World Cup Final. Knew and expected it to be busy. We just enjoyed drinks at the bar. We were sadly, served by a bar man that didn't even open his mouth and looked us up...

Sat down at our table which hadn't been wiped properly. We order 2 drinks from a very young staff member who looked confused. Waited 10 mins for another waitress asked her about our drinks and she checked to come back and say they'd actually run...

Really poor service. First waiter said was to busy and to go away. The manager suggested to wait. We waited for more than an hour to be seated. When the table was ready they have not helped us with the wine and nibbles we were...

We ate outside and were told to order at the bar. We did as we were told. Our food took for ever and then all courses came at once. The bill was incorrect as we were invoiced for another table's drinks despite the fact that...

The Builders Arms has changed hands within the last few months. This is the first time I have been back under new ownership for Sunday lunch. Service faultless. Italian chef however a lot to learn in producing British Sunday lunch. Food tepid, vegetables flacid obviously...

I came in for dinner with my family a few days ago and everything was so good! The manager was so welcoming and food tasted great. Highly recommended!

Having frequented the Builders about 5-7 years ago, we went with the expectations of previous visits. Food overpriced. I don’t want this to be a review where people think this is someone who doesn’t go to pubs/restaurants like the Builders and think that when we...

Oh my goodness, how can a pub go downhill so quickly. I know it has just been taken over by Cubitt but I have been coming into this pub for about 40 years and have been there through a number of changes in management but...

The pub feels as if it’s gone downhill. We go there often but this time servive was poor( the pub was hosting a large party at the back) which made it noisy and didn’t help service. Food was indifferent. I had chicken which was very...

The blonde barmaid, iona served us wonderfully, her professionalism was incomparable. So friendly and such a big smile, made me feel so comfortable and welcome. Will definitely be visiting again!

A bit of a sloaney pub but good atmosphere and good food. Beer selection was fine, but pricey but you are in Chelsea. Service in restaurant was great.

Sunday roast Didn’t have in first place the beef one because at 4pm ‘they run it out’ already. Vat not included (sneaky). Didn’t have what was included in a dish but no one said anything about it until we asked for it and not even...

The pub is very beautiful and well located , and in general the staff is very friendly. We were considering our Xmas dinner there, when the other manager, Billy, who was lovely and provided an amazing service, received us the previous time. But last time...

Friends held their engagement party here. Tucked away in a residential area. Great service, friendly atmosphere, really good cocktails and tasty food. Fantastic and enjoyable evening. I will find a way to return!

I stayed there on Sunday! I drank a fantastic Bloody Mary and ate a great Sunday Roast, very abundant and tasty…I had lunch outside and it is located in a very quiet area!

Great pub. Awesome place. Great food and water. The water is very crispy and the food is very delectable

Quick service and friendly staff. The pub has really nice interior and serves great beer. Brilliant variety.

It has always been a haunt of ours as it's local and an attractive atmosphere. Though the terrace is now much more attractive and the service is friendly, it is always quite slow and both food and menus need improving.

Came with a reservation. Very rude service. We were rushed given the bill almost an hour before closing time and rushed out the door. I’ve been coming hear for almost 5 years, and while I understand these are uncertain times I feel the staff was...

We found this pub on a walk around Chelsea. Good service and lovely food.The plum tart was superb as was the rum cream!

The staff are absolutely exceptional. Casual fine dining in colabaration with a classic London pub. The general manager goes above and beyond, if you want a fantastic evening visit this site.

AVOID eating there! Had dinner at the Builders Arms with a group of friends, and two of us landed up with severe food poisoning after eating the chicken salad and fries. No apology, no refund, and no news from the pub since reporting it.

What more can I say? The lunch was perfect. Popped in for a working lunch with a client, no booking, just asked for a table and were seated straight away. This is more a restaurant than a London pub, not that it's a bad thing...

Had a very tasty Sunday roast while enjoying the relaxed vibe/ambience of this pub. We came based on a recommendation in The Infatuation and got the Sunday roast "to share", with beef, chicken, and pork as well a bunch of nice sides like yorkshire pudding...