Loft - St Albans

Nice eating in a beautiful environment with friendly, attentive staff. absolutely faultless!

We booked our wedding 4 months ago at the loft. We were supposed to do a tasting and suggested a date. We called, emailed and even contacted them on social media for 5 weeks and no one got back to us. In the end we had to find another venue for 40 people and 7 weeks to go. We have asked for our deposit back and they are avoiding all communication. Be VERY careful before booking at this venue

Well at least we can laugh about it now…not the special night we were expecting for our daughters 18th. The warning signs were there with the non-matching cutlery and the spelling mistakes on the menu, Halloumi fires, ****** merry or peppercom sauce anyone? The waiter took my beer order and disappeared leaving the rest of my family staring aghast and thirsty as he walked off. My daughter was looking forward to her first legal drink, a cocktail, unfortunately when it came there were a few ants in the drink, maybe off the mint leaves. Obviously we asked then to make a new cocktail. Things went from bad to worse….the replacement cocktail again had a few ants crawling in it, back it went, after ordering Pork Belly Bites starters, the waiter returned 5 minutes later to say unfortunately there were none left, and the two steaks we ordered medium rare tried to crawl off the plates as soon as they arrived, not sure they even said hello to the grill. The steaks were taken off to be cooked properly whilst the others ate their duck, which was fine. The steaks came back fine, albeit three of us had finished. At least the waiter gave the kids a laugh hitting his head on the low wooden beam, not once but three times, perhaps the best value for money of the night. Things sometimes don’t go well, I offered 50% which was accepted with apology and no argument, fair enough, 3 stars for effort!

Lovely restaurant! Food was tasty and staff were lovely, I highly recommend. We went for a celebration meal and they were extremely accommodating! Menu options are amazing! We all wanted everything. 4 star because I feel like it could do with 2 improvements: First Outside is very unloved, with dead flowers etc and the stairs could do with a clean up to make it look more inviting! Second the plates were cold which meant the food wasn’t as hot as I feel it should have been.

Ordered a dish with Tofu, got deep fried halloumi . Asked to change to tofu. Swapped for vegan cheese but didn't tell us maybe they were hoping we wouldn't notice or would think it was tofu. The poor waiting staff didn't know what to do. Asked to speech to manager was told they had gone home. Asked who was in charge was told no one. Other diner's over heard and said they had the same experience but were to embarrassed to say anything. All this on a busy Valentine's evening. Poor show. Won't be returning.