The best restaurants serving British food in Hoe Street Waltham Forest London

I can count on one hand the number of times I have walked out of a restaurant, and this sadly was one of them. I have eaten here on a number of occasions over the years, and had a good experience, but was firstly put off by the 1 1/2 hour slot allocated for a booking. We hadn't even had our main course well over 1 hour and 40 minutes later. My wife and I arrived before our slot of 7.30 pm to be waved in the direction of our table by the waiter. We might have known it was auspicious as the no. of the table was 13 situated bang next to the kitchen and a service cupboard. One of the owners came with menus and offered water which never turned up until I requested it over 20 minutes later when our order was eventually taken, but the specials were not shown to us. The guest on the next table offered his jug of water which was nice before. It was well over 30 minutes when the starters arrived just after our drinks. Whilst waiting, I noticed there was something in the glass of water that had been brought - not a jug, a glass. My wife also noticed the glass was marked or a little dirty. I asked the same waiter, to fetch me another glass and pointed out the issue. His manner was sullen as before. By this point, I had got fed up of the wait noting that our 1 1/2 hour slot was fantasy. We had decided to eat and leave and stop the service charge, but the waiter's attitude tipped me over to agreeing with my wife to leave. It was gone 9 pm by this stage and despite a couple of check-ins from one of the owners, we got up to go saying we had waited too long and complained about the waiter and moreso the delay The owner replied that they were terribly sorry, the waiter was not supposed to be on duty and his English wasn't very good. I replied that that was no excuse for bad manners. The other owner came over to say that our food was now ready, but I said that our evening had been spoilt and we didn't want to eat. He said that they had a lot of guests at once and were short in the kitchen. All of this is flannel: they have a booking system and time slots (1 1/2 hours hardly makes for conviviality. The atmosphere was zero tucked away on the worst table in the place. I had also had a word before that on the QT with another couple who confirmed they had also had to wait ages for their meal. I can put up with delays if we are kept informed, but not bad manners nor inefficient management. A really poor show all round. There's a difference between busy and chaos.

As said in the title I ordered with delivroo and bagels were mouldy and smell really bad it's impossible for them not to realised that they put bagels in mouldy paper containers. This isn't safe at all I might get sick.

The restaurant has closed. After 17 odd years, they couldn't make it work. But all is not lost. Check out the (once was) Spanish bar next door which is also going through a change with new owners. Eat17 Itself is being refurbished to open as a bar.

Don’t be fooled by the slightly odd appearance, if you can look past the fruit machines at the front of the restaurant this place serves excellent South Indian and Sri Lankan food at great prices. Our friends go often and it’s always a laugh. Highlights are the masala dosa, mutton curry and the thalis. An unassuming gem in Walthamstow.