Hoi Polloi in Hackney

Great place, food was good and the service was friendly.

A beautiful room, really nice ambience and great food- would definitely go again. We went for an anniversary and it was perfect for us

Great interior, with a modern 1930's interior by the UK designers Barber Osgerby. Food was very good on the whole, the Salmon Gravalax, the Ribeye etc, we enjoyed our 8 party lunch. A little bit difficult to hear, this could be improved.

One of my favourite spots for brunch on a weekend, the atmosphere is always friendly and the music from the string quartet just the icing on the cake. The food is delicious although I do wish more of the breakfast options were available at Brunch. The service is usually top notch just this time felt our main waiter was a little dismissive, but we all have our bad days and this really didn't ruin anything. Overall I love this place!Every time I bring someone there for the first time they are shocked at how great the food and ambience is and that they have walked straight past the Flower shop front so many times and never knew it was there.

Service was chaotic from the moment we walked in. We went specifically for afternoon tea, but were told by our server there was no afternoon tea. (The server was wrong - they just hadn’t put the menus out yet, which we heard another staff member tell him later. There was no apology.) We had to scramble to order tea and cakes a la carte. Overall not a good experience.

wonderful brunch on Sunday, we walked into the restaurant through a fragrant flower shop and were greeted by the coolest string quartet playing Salt & Pepper's push it! Food was great the dining room is beautiful

Lovely food, nice atmosphere, pleasant service. Will come again

Nice ambience and love band. Service was a bit slow and serving sizes quite small relative to price. Still a nice meal though, would recommend as a date venue

Brilliant place. Interior is beautiful. Lighting and vibes is excellent. Food is small dishes and is on the expensive side, but they are delicious. It’s a brilliant place and can’t wait everytime

Loved our experience. I booked for 8 but at the last minute I had 12 and they were super helpful rearranging to fit us all in. The food was delicious, the ambience was great, the bar next door was lively but didn’t overspill into the restaurant. I would definitely be going back. Only comment is that as it was pricier for drinks it would be for a special occasion rather than a regular visit.

What an impeccably kind man Nordine is, helpful to a fault, patient and considerate of our needs as tourists. He was so kind and made our stay wonderful.

Good ratio of eggs on my eggs on toast. Price was good as well.

Excelente adición al creciente cielo culinario en el este de Londres. Cada plato que tuvimos fue excelente. Solo el servicio irregular me detuvo dándole 5 estrellas.

The atmosphere was lovely and the food great, however the service was... interesting! The girl was sweet but completely misunderstood our order every time! It became kind of funny though. Great pancakes and the string quartet is very unique.

Food was good and reasonably priced, but service was atrocious. Took 20 mins to be asked for drinks, and we had to prompt the waiter. Then took another 15 to be asked about food, and we had to prompt the waiter again.

Me encantaría haber dado una estrella más, pero algunos de los alimentos no dieron en el blanco. El aperitivo era bueno, es decir, hummus anacardo era excelente. Desafortunadamente, cuando traía los platos principales, la pobre camarera se quemó del plato hirviendo tipo sartén caliente que contenía queso de coliflor, lo que provocó que dejara el lote. Tanto el gerente como una de las chicas que nos atendieron se disculparon extremadamente e hicieron todo lo correcto para corregir la situación. Fue un accidente completo y estábamos mucho más preocupados por la pobre niña que por la comida en el piso. Toda la comida se rehizo de inmediato. Mi bistec estaba muy bueno al igual que el queso de coliflor y también las papas salteadas (pero tuve que preguntar dónde estaban, ya que definitivamente se olvidaron de reordenarlas). Mi marido tenía macarrones con queso con costillas cortas pero tenía demasiada salsa de la costilla que estropeó el resto del plato. El sándwich de mi club de amigos se veía muy bien y las papas fritas eran geniales. Todos los postres estaban bien. Ambiente agradable allí, desearía haber podido darle esa estrella más. Como el gerente hizo todo lo posible para arreglar las cosas y para mí eso mostró una excelente gestión.

Great food, lovely venue, terrible service. Been here several times before, but really disappointed this time. Brusque, offhand waiter that seemed to forget about our table halfway through the meal. Dessert wines ordered were completely forgotten about. Eventually brought by another member of staff who left one glass of port and one of red wine when we'd ordered two ports. When we complained, we were told the restaurant was short-staffed - no attempt to own the problem, no apology. Really disappointing, but hopefully it was just a bad weekend.

One of my fave brunch spots in London. Love the live music, delicious food and bloody good Bloody Mary's

Nice place but food and service was really not good

Consiglio di prenotare. Adiacente all’ace hotel si entra da un negozietto che vende fiori, il locale è molto grande. Il menu sullo stile londinese, piatti non propriamente semplici e accompagnati da salse discutibili, nel complesso discreta la qualità, prezzo nella media (40€ circa con bevande, piatto principale e dolce)

Tostadas Francesas 7º cielo! (Jorge) Servicio 5 ***** (Elana gracias!) ¡Un lugar increíble con cosas increíbles que sirve a todos con todo el corazón!

More vegetarian/vegan options would be appreciated.

Really nice restaurant. Good space for a birthday. The french waiter was really helpful and patient with us. He helped us with our menu choices. Clean, good food. Cheeseburger was nice. Ace hotel, next door nice place to relax in as well

Perfect for a relaxed breakfast. Just the coffee was not to our taste.

Always a pleasure at Hoi Polloi! Great food, cool decor and friendly staff. Great for brunch!

Brunch with some unusual but tasty combinations. Nice chilled atmosphere with a cool Shoreditch crowd.

My husbands stomping ground for work we spent the weekend in Shoreditch and went here for breakfast . I took the healthy granola option and it was amazing . Plenty of it and lovely fresh fruit on the top . Well worth a visit

always love dining here, service and food were both excellent as usual.

We booked for NYE and it was an amazing experience! Amazing oyster, great selection of wine and champagne. The waiter Riccardo was very friendly and accommodating. We had a little chat in italian too :-) 5 stars!

Hoi Polloi is ever a favourite- always comes up with the goods. Also the Quartet was magnificent.

The service was pretty slow. I was waiting 15 minutes after ordering a drink and had to chase it up. Service was poor overall and the food was ok.

Nice and relaxed atmosphere but feel the food is over priced given the portions. I had the seafood linguine and when it arrived it looked like less pasta than a child's portion. I also only had 3 mussels and 3 clams. For £17 i was expecting a full plate of food. Shame because it was delicious

Lovely (breakfast) setting. Friendly service with special question about allergies; thank you so much. Really appreciated. Not so crowded, easy to have a nice conversation at our table. Refill of water is great. Perfect eggs (sunny side up); bacon is enough for 2. Good (filter) coffee and cappuccino. Funny to walk through a small flower shop and walk out via the ACE hotel. Nice atmosphere at the coffee bar.

Went for breakfast food and coffee were both very enjoyable, would go back.

The best place for Sunday brunch!

Love the live music, coffee is delicious - a smidge pricey but very good. Its a bit of a treat and lovely place to sit with your friends and catch up without noise and chaos. I had booked a table for 3x and was given a small corner table. I asked if we could have a booth but was told they were all fully booked. We were joined by a 4th person so it was very cramped. I'm not sure if all the booths were booked with tables of 3 or 4 but it did feel a bit tight and cramped for 4x people who ate breakfast and had a couple of coffees each. But my party are all very laid back so they were all happy.

Absoluut de moeite waard om te bezoeken. Omdat wij een makkelijke eerste avond in London wilden vanwege de reis met kinderen heb ik geboekt in dit restaurant. Onze verwachtingen waren misschien niet al te hoog maar we waren echt positief verrast. Lekkere kaart, mooie eenvoudige inrichting en vriendelijke bediening. Gerechten zijn om te delen en we startten met snacks. Lekker desembrood, humus, kroketten van pompoen. Daarna voor de kids Mac and Cheese, halve kip, sla, frites ( zgn dripped fries). Je kunt hier lekker op je gemak wat eten. We zagen ook mensen werkend achter hun laptop wat eten.

Great place! They should make their portions smaller, so you could try more things!

Great food, great service. Chilled atmosphere with a good buzz about it.

We had an amazing dinner experience at Hoi Polloi, Big thank you to Beatriz for a warm welcoming and thank you to Rebeca and Benoit for looking after us. Food was great, nice portions and good value. We definitely will be back. Thank you for the experience!

I think this is one of my favorite places to eat ever! The food was delicious! The decor was really special. The service was outstanding! Friendliest staff I’ve encountered in London. 😃. Can’t wait to go back!

Worst Christmas dinner ever! I would have loved some food that my aunt Margaret couldn’t make in her sleep. And she shops in the Tesco frozen food section.

We stayed at the Ace Hotel in the same building, and we needed a good restaurant for Christmas Day. Since most restaurants are closed that day, we wanted to stay in and eat at Hoi Polloi. Before the trip I asked the hotel if the restaurant would be open, and the answer was yes. On the restaurant web page though it said they were open till 16:00, which was too early for our dinner. To make sure, I also asked in the restaurant at breakfast if it was open, and if they took reservations. The answer was no. On OpenTable it was possible to book a table at 19:15, and we did, just to see if it worked. But since the Hoi Polloi home page said it was closed at night, we figured OpenTable time was a mistake. (Since we did trust OpenTable on Christmas Eve, and that restaurant sadly enough ended up being totally closed). So we stayed in the room, googling to find another open place. I was therefore surprised to find that I had a missed call at the time of my booking. It turned out Hoi Polloi was open, and they had my reservation. We went down and got a good table, the restaurant was not at all full. The staff was not too excited over the guests, and we guessed they too wanted to spend Christmas with family and friends instead of working. The overall feeling was a bit slow and sad. The menu was quite promising, with some surprising combinations. We had a pretty good chicken, but two undercooked Onglet steaks. The waiter first forgot one of them, but when i arrived it was cooked very little. We ordered medium rare, as the kitchen recommended, but it was pretty much rare. Our teenager wouldn´t eat much of it. We did not have it sent back, since we were hungry. In total: We expected more for the price. Maybe Christmas Day was a bad day, but the options were few.

A great restaurant with delicious food, friendly staff and beautiful decor.

Love it for breakfast. Very dog friendly. Great team. Gorgeous grub. Noise levels better these days. Highly recommend it 👍🏼🐾

The restaurant is completely open with no hidden areas which can be distracting. Food was good drinks were fine and the service was really good. Overall a nice experience

Went for a client lunch. Expected it look & feel more festive as it just before Christmas. Feels a bit more like a high end airport restaurant. Food was great - really nice! I had cod on lentils which was beautiful as was the sticky toffee pudding. Had to ask for water a few times before actually receiving it 20 mins later. I liked that you can book unlike a lot of other restaurants in the area where it’s walk in only.

We had a very enjoyable experience, i saw lots of different plates of food being served that 8 would like to try.

The food was absolutely delicious (especially the roast potatoes) and the service was excellent. The portions weren't too big either. We were also sat next to the string quartet which were brilliant and they weren't too loud. I will definitely come back and try the rest of the menu.

Delicious food, friendly service and smiles all around. Returned to Hoi Polloi after a while and I was pleasantly surprised to see most of the same faces. The manager recognised me from before and he dropped by to say hello. Duarte made us feel welcome and the waiter Ricardo took good care of us. Always good to be back in Hoi Polloi.

We had the most wonderful time, very festive, loved the tree and the string quartet added to the ambience. The staff were attentive and the food and cocktails were delicious. The noise level was perfect, we could chat without shouting but still enjoyed the music, all in all it was a very successful lunch 💋

Amazing relaxed service. Incredible food - I couldn’t think of a better place to go with friends

We came for drinks and nibbles on a Friday night. The tartare was the best I can remember ever having and the drippings chips were phenomenal.

Good quality of food and tasty. Nice ambiance with live band. Courteous and kind staffs, however, the slow service (25 min wait between meal and meal had to be sent back as arrived cold) corrupted the whole experience. Would go back hoping better attention from staffs

Not many vegan offerings but what was there was AMAZING!!! Really impressed. The portion size was really good, ingredient quality outstanding and presentation was just beautiful. The service wasn't great. Senior waiter had no idea what 'vegan' meant but his colleague was more knowledgeable. Took a while to get seated and served and it wasn't at all busy which was frustrating.

I visited Hoi Polloi for some drinks on my last night in London, the incredible bar tenders Chris and Fabio looked after me. The very friendly Irena was also very accommodating.

I've loved everything: the food, the atmosphere, the people. This place is fancy and casual at the same time, with a particular attitude. Perhaps just a little bit expensive, but this is London :)

Perfect for a breakfast meeting. Nice booths that are relatively private.

Great location for those working in the City. Great champagne. Not sure about the Austrian wine. Very nice steak tartare. Handy to have the bar/ dance area in another part of the building to extend the evening. Slightly overpriced though.

The service was very good, our waiter was attentive, friendly and gave great recommendations. However, the menu is a bit small, there could have been more options. The food was good though, also the cocktails were very tasty but came in rather small sizes.

I've not been for a while but I always enjoy coming here for brunch, the staff are lovely, the food tasty and the music enjoyable. Will definitely be back in the future.

Really nice ambiance. Live music was playing for a bit. Decent menu. A bit pricey for what you get. 7£ for a juice is above average. Good service. I would go back.

Cool, swanky restaurant in a trendy area with nice food - particularly good portion sizes.

Really nice atmosphere outside in the beer garden. Came here with partner but could totally see a group enjoying some craft beers out back. Service was fantastic moved us from inside to outside in front of a fan to help combat to heat. Fish n chips was spot on.

Good restaurant, perfect for a friend gathering. Love the atmosphere! The food is great, and the menu changes frequently. Definitely recommend the chocolate fondant for dessert! Thanks to our waiter Benoit for this amazing experience!

The food is great, the service also and we loved the band who playing

We had a brunch for 12 today. The food was great but I'm motivated to write a review because of the staff, Ricardo and team were so efficient and attentive. Often when you eat out as a group it can take x 3 times as long to order, get drinks etc today was text book. We done.

Hoi Polloi is a cool retro/hipster place to eat with 70's retro design. So if your criteria for a good restaurant is a modern/updated flashing design, Hoi Polloi is not the place for you. We came for dinner and we were left with a big smile on our faces. The selection on the menu is nice, though it's definitely not one of these menus that take you hours to read, leaving you confused with endless options, and still - there's enough selection for everyone. The food was great, nice portions, well made. Hospitality was great and the staff was handy in recommending drinks. We really enjoyed our dinner. Thanks for the experience.

The service was probably the worst I’ve had in a few years in London

Food was fine. They didn't confirm our booking upon arrival so I received an email in error from Open Table afterwards asking why we didn't attend the booking even though we did. Service was quite slow. I ordered a coke which the waiter forgot about and never brought. I would have liked some lemon with my fish as it was not well seasoned but the waiter never returned to ask how the food was or check if we needed anything else. Overall an OK experience but the service could have been much better and so I probably would not return or recommend this restaurant to others for that reason.

Great brunch! I'll definitely go back when visiting London again. It is necessary to make a reservation in order to get a good table.

Love this restaurant, service was great, food was great and we headed into the ace hotel next door for some cocktails after the meal.

Food is pretty good and decently priced. Had a table for two, and the restaurant was empty. Where did the waitress want to put us? Right by another table and when she asks me if it’s ok “Ermm no - why do we need to sit so close to another table?” We were moved to another area because I mean the restaurant was relatively empty... Not much attention from staff too. They had some staff meeting at one point, while completely visible to the restaurant, and therefore no one was serving. If you gave them eye contact at this point, it was obvious they didn’t want to serve you. In summary, It’s ok I guess. Would I come back, yeah as the food is decent if you’re there during their promo time. On service? No. Not worth the service charge. Very strange

The food was excellent. Service was disorganised and chaotic. We had to chase our drinks and our sides. One guest finished the main meal before the side of potatoes even arrived. Drinks came after mains, and that’s only because we chased for them.

Zero ambience, food too expensive for what it was, staff was not very friendly and clumsy - the gremolata in my main ended up everywhere as the waitress was placing the plate on our table. Wouldn’t go back.

I don't normally write reviews but I feel compelled on this occasion the experience was so bad. But let's start with the pros: I've been to Hoi Polloi once before, recently, for Sunday brunch. The food, brunch munch, was decent and my partner and I enjoyed the atmosphere which was enhanced by a string quartet of musicians playing live. Now the cons: I went back today (Friday) for lunch and ordered, linguine with crab, clams, and mussels and chilli. For an overpriced £18 I got: - a tiny portion of linguine swamped in a creamy, nondescript sauce - six (yes 6) tiny clams or were they mussels? I couldn't tell they were so overpowered by cream. I didn't get: - any taste or heat of chilli whatsoever (there were a couple of dots of red on the plate which may or may not have been chilli). - any taste or trace of crab at all - any response (like, a sorry to hear that sir) from the waitress when she asked me and my friend post meal 'was everything ok?' to which we both in unison replied 'no, actually that food was really bad!' (he had ordered the linguine too). We left, underwhelmed and underfed. This was the worst food I have eaten for a some time. Putting £18 aside it was just bad. It's the sort of food that tries to be modern and priced accordingly but just ends up being akin to a recipe suggestion on the back of a Tesco's jar of cream sauce. The recruitment blurb on their website trying to attract staff is contrary to our experience and leaves a lot to be desired. I will leave my vitriol there. ''We are committed to developing our people to become the best in the business and we're never happy just stopping at getting things done. So if you love customers who tell you they've had a great time, the chances are, we'll love you.''

Had booked for an afternoon tea - it was a miserable Saturday afternoon in November and we arrived half an hour early (to get into the warm!). Our table was ready, so we were shown to it - but the afternoon tea was not available until the appointed time. Not really a problem for us.

Food is great but this was my 3rd time there and for the third time I found the service to be inattentive l. I always have to wait at least 5 minutes (my 2nd time there took 10min!) until I finally meet someone’s eyes to flag them down! I gave it another chance because I thought maybe the problem was that it happened to be really busy that night. But alas, late afternoon on a Sunday, when the place is less than 1/3 full, the same flagging down story...

Great venue for breakfast on Sunday morning...would highly recommend!

The scones were absolutely delicious! And we truly enjoyed the unlimited tea. Thank you!

Poor quality all round. A very uninterested service.

A brilliant place with a great vibe! Live music was amazing, would go again and again!

Amazing food, and had lovely musicians playing. Gorgeous decor. Very friendly staff! Recommend the avocado corn bread dish

Nice relaxed atmosphere, loved the string quartet on Sunday. Food was very fresh and delicious, I loved the scalops and Bloody Maries. The service was smooth and quick very friendly waiters. Coming back for sure

We loved it! Ate the most delicious pancakes while classical music was being played live. Really nice experience!

Very disappointed with the cocktails and the desserts. Main courses were good. Tasty and good portion size. Service hit and miss. Waiter tried his best. No pre service briefing - waitress had to check with kitchen on basic details. Cocktails small expensive and not well executed.

Delicious food (we had the plaice, the mac and cheese and the pancakes) the service was a little slow but friendly, and our waiters' English proficiency wasn't the best which can be an issue if food allergies (it might have been due to our accents - roe was misunderstood as raw). The atmosphere was lovely with live music at Sunday brunch time.

I use Hoi Poloi quite a lot as it is local - It’s great for brunch but I was very disappointed at the Sunday lunch selection. I don’t eat meat so was hoping for a nut roast or a good alternative. The only thing I could eat was the Plaice. The roast that my friend had was great value for money as it came with all the trimmings. Mine did not so I had to buy side dishes which made my meal extremely expensive- Not impressed - Please look at this

I love the decor and music at Hoi Polloi. It's the perfect place or a working lunch. The music choice and volume level are perfect. I feel the customer service and food quality are off brand though. Not dramatically but enough for it to be an issue. I hope this is helpful. If you'd like to ask me about this I'd be more than happy to pop by for a chat.

Service was great, buy the food was mediocre. I had a portobello mushroom burger, and it was mushy.

It was disappointing they had run out of Sunday Roast by 2.30pm but the cocktails were really good and the string quartet were excellent.

Lovely granola, lovely chia seed dish; poor oat cake and poached eggs dish. Stylish and quiet surroundings. Decent coffee. Overall quite a nice place to have a quiet breakfast, but the dishes didn't blow us away. If they could jazz up the menu it would add a lot.

Thought service could have been better- often times felt like we had to work hard to get anyone's attention. I was also surprised by the fact that there was no gravy on my Sunday roast! No one came around to ask how everything was, though. And there is excessive use of napkins!

the only thing that prevented a full house score was that the food didn't arrive together, with a good 5 minute delay for one plate.. a shame as everything else was awesome.

I really like this place for brunch as it has a great atmosphere. The music is not too loud so it’s a good place for a catch up. I have been using Hoi Poloi for a long time now but I feel the food portions are getting smaller and every little item is charged as a side order - not great value for money not the service is generally nice and friendly

Great food. Only issue order a tea without no one offered me a sugar or milk with it. I had to ask twice to get it.

Food wasn’t good let’s be honest.

Overpriced food & small serving sizes service was slow -

Stayed at the ACE HOTEL 12th and 13th Oct 2019. We ate BRUNCH at HOI POLLOI and also had a late dinner (10pm) after a show at the Westend. There was fabulous live music with a string quartet during brunch on Saturday Staff were friendly but professional and efficient. The service was excellent - it was impressive given how busy the restaurant is. The menu had a great variety and the 3 of us loved every bite of each of our dishes! Lovely drinks menu also We really enjoyed our experience, we would highly recommend it and we will certainly be returning

Great vibe, ideal an enjoyable evening for any occasion.