True Brew Cafe, East Hill in Wandsworth

I have used this cafe for many years and since the proprietor Ali left it seems to have lost it’s way as on a number of occasions they are advertising dishes on their menu which they no longer prepare or have the ingredients for, therefor they need to update the menu to reflect what is currently available. I have also noticed that the sauce bottles they use have broken lids and could potentially be unhygienic.. A tweak here and there would benefit.

Have been visiting bi-annually for last 3 or 4 years. October 2024 visit very disappointing. Menu has been shortened and made very generic. Decor is tired. Staff are still pleasant but the buzzy ambience and perception of leading the trends are gone.

Here just for drinks while we waited to check in to Premier Inn just round the corner. Service was okay and coffee okay. Seems to be a café /coffee shop to bring your gadgets and look at your screen. Depends upon your point of view whether that is good, bad or indifferent.

We've been here before, maybe a year ago and the experience was good, however on this occasion it was poor. We selected what we wanted from the website menu however when we arrived it was apparent that the website menu was out of date; some of our selections were not on the table menu. Two of our party selected Sausages and mash but there were no sausages so had to select something else. Three of us ordered fish & chips but bizarrely there was no vinegar available. It's the first establishment I've ever been to where you couldn't get vinegar with fish and chips. One of our party ordered a burger which was supposed to have two patties but was more like one and a half. He went to complain about it but nobody came back to us. When paying at the bar I mentioned the burger issue and the guy I was talking to went off to check with the server and he knocked this meal off the bill. I also pointed out that they had missed £60 worth of wine off the bill. He added it on to the bill but I didn't get any thanks for this. Wish I hadn't bothered now. I feel that the main issue however was the demeanour of the staff. Instead of "I'm awfully sorry we've ran out of vinegar" and maybe an explanation of why, it was "we haven't got any vinegar". It wasn't " I'm really sorry, we've had a run on the sausages and there aren't any left" or something like that, it was "we haven't got any sausages", It wasn't "we're really sorry the burger meal wasn't up to our usual standard" or something like that, it was "I've knocked it off the bill". It wasn't "oh, that's really good of you to let us know we'd missed the wine off the bill" or something like that. It was, well nothing really, it just got added to the bill. It was if having customers there was an inconvenience to the staff. There was minimal eye contact, no smiles and avoiding contact with customers as much as possible appeared evident. Wish we had gone somewhere else. We certainly won't be going again. I'm writing this in response to an email from the Nine Elms Tavern saying that my option matters. It will be interesting to see what, if any, response I get to this.

Un gran lugar para tomar un café y tarta. El personal es muy amable y el servicio es de primera clase. Nuestra primera visita fue sólo después de que se abrió y fuimos un número de veces durante las tres semanas que estuvimos en lo intentaría Broadway. Voy a volver en dos años más tarde que en realidad será recordado por el propietario era una gran sensación. Gran lugar para coger una tranquila.