1901 at Andaz

Location location location. Haven’t been here on a weekend, just weekday and always with a work focus. It’s a great place to meet and have breakfast or lunch. It can be quite noisy when busy and sometimes it’s so busy, it’s worth booking.
The service is usually excellent and very attentive. You do not have to wait long for anything. Eager to please, they are also more than happy to deal with fussy eaters or special requests.
Overall, it’s my goto place for meetings in that part of the city.

Had the included breakfast buffet here last week while in Europe on vacation and my husband and I were pretty pleased with it. The building is right beside the Andaz hotel by Hyatt and breakfast was included with our room.
We walked over early in the morning before going on a tour and were quickly seated and offered tea or coffee. We opted for both. I wasn’t blown away by the tea but my hubs enjoyed the coffee well enough.
They have a very large selection of food laid out in the middle of the room on a huge table that you can take from on both sides. Behind that table is another with pastries and cheeses. The main table features yogurt, cereal, fresh fruit, milk, porridge etc.
You can also order an omelette from the server and it will be brought out to you in about 4 – 5 minutes.
The breakfast was good — and the many options allowed us to feel that we were able to get something that would sustain us for a few hours until it was time for lunch.
All you can ask for in a breakfast buffet included in a hotel — and it had some more than you’d ask for as well.

For such a beautiful restaurant in such a beautiful hotel, I honestly expected, or at least hoped, for better.
We came through a great Lime & Tonic offer that gave us four drinks and a canapes. It’s a beautiful grand lobby you walk through (although not actually into the hotel, but back outside and first door to the right, as we learned.)
The issues started right away. I had to move our reservation the week before over the phone and somewhere they lost it. I could show them my original reservation and the email for the offer I bought, but they kept telling me they either needed to find it in the system or I needed a code. I had to dig through a ton of emails to find it before they’d sit us. Cool.
But then we were sat and it was fine. It’s a lovely, quiet space with a grand ceiling and soft lighting. We were handed the cocktail menu, which is epic. Page after page or drinks, some creations of the hotel, others timeless classics. You definitely pay for the experience though, as most cocktails come in at about £13. Damn. They are very well made though and strong, we walked out with a nice buzz.
For food, we couldn’t decide on one thing. All the starters were £6 but they had a deal of four for £14. Cool. We wanted to do that. Only it turns out they couldn’t subtract the price of one starter from this to accommodate our deal. We had to order it separately and then order our canapé. Really? Fine. We did. We got a lamb’s pie, duck rolls, a shrimp dish and a chicken on skewers and then vegetables balls as our added on dish.
The food came down a little while later and it was… disappointing to say the least. Everything on the plate was brown and fried into little balls with sauces on the side. The waiter put it down with no explanation of what anything was and just walked away. We had to actually call her back and ask which each one was, since they all looked exactly the same. Turns out, she didn’t even bring the right ones and had mixed up what we ordered. She brought the right things (which again, were brown fried balls that looked like the other brown fried balls.) It was just as unappetising as it sounds, sadly. The chicken was dry and overcooked. The shrimp was so fishy I couldn’t finish it. The lamb’s pie was tasty but because it was fried into the balls, it just kind of tasted like fried food. Same with the vegetable balls. Ugh.
I was really looking forward to a wonderful night with this little offer I bought. But in the end, it wasn’t worth it at all.