Simpsons-in-the Strand is one of the oldest and most traditional English restaurants in London so I thought it would be an ideal please for us to get a great big breakfast to start off our day. There is a large variety of offerings on the menu from traditional English breakfasts to omelettes to fish dishes (e.g. smoked haddock kedgeree and grilled kippers) and other breakfast suspects like eggs benedict.

The item that intrigued me the most was the Ten Deadly Sins breakfast which basically was a full English breakfast with lamb kidney, fried bread, bubble & squeak and baked beans. Yep – I wasn’t going to go hungry for a long while! This is priced at £21.50 with the full English being priced at £19.50 – both prices are ridiculously expensive but justified on the basis that you’re paying for the venue and the price also included toast, pastries, coffee / tea, a choice of choice of cereals, porridge or half a grapefruit, and a juice – so I guess not to bad value.

Breakfast was a pleasant meal but that was purely because of the company! And certainly not because of the service which was ever so disappointing. For a start the restaurant did that terrible thing of asking you what drink you want before even giving us a chance to look at the menu, for another our waitress was sooo not interested in what she was doing that she barely explained how the breakfast worked. The last straw was that Mum’s dish had some strains of a steel wool in it! How that got in there is anyone’s guess. At least the manager had the good grace to comp us the meal – we didn’t ask for it and were certainly surprised he did so since he seemingly begrudgingly admitted the restaurant had made a mistake!

Simpson’s-in-the-Strand today was a restaurant let down by the disinterested and almost what I would consider cold service.