The Diner

We were pretty desperate and didn’t want to wait in line at The Breakfast club so decided to give this place a shot. Nice clean décor and friendly hostess.
We had been warned off the breakfast tortilla by my friend who lives nearby which he said is essentially a bag of Doritos with some breakfast stuff thrown on top.
I had the Hungry Man’s breakfast and it was ok. My fiancée has the egg muffin and it was ok too. That’s really all I have to say about this place — it’s ok. The Elk in the Woods and The Breakfast Club are both better nearby alternatives and even a local greasy spoon café would be at least as good and cheaper

I can really only base this off one breakfast experience there, but the branding and environment was cute and the staff was sweet, which is why I’m giving it 3 stars instead of 2. I didn’t know about the free wi-​fi which I just read on Linzi’s review in the sidebar, so that gives it an extra solid 3-​star boost for me.
But on to the breakfast, which was overpriced *for sure*, but plentiful. The American-​style pancakes were dense and tasted a lot like lemons, which I found vexing. Being an American, I know my pancakes and these were not it.
I also had to be That American and sent my eggs back. I really *really* didn’t want to, but for £10 for a simple breakfast, I needed to. They were inedible. Ordered «scrambled» got «fried and minced up with a spatula» and while I would’ve shut up and eaten that, they were also underdone with shimmying runny whites. Nope. Nope nope.
The bacon was bacony. The service, again, was sweet and she took my egg-​return in stride without no side-​eye or anything. I did take *forever* to get our bill, but I’ve found that to be the case everywhere I’ve been thus far in London. It’s like they never want you to leave. I love you, London restaurants, but we have places to be!
I liked that The Diner had alright bottomless filter coffee for £2.80, which I’ll now take advantage of with my laptop and their wi-​fi, as I’ll inevitably be back since it’s right up the street.
Plus, I’ve heard about the boozy shakes and cheese fries now and I’m no fool.

About three or four few years ago, The Diner was always my go-​to burger/​milkshake/​comfort food joint. However, over the past few years the standard has plummeted. I’ve thought this for a while and every now and then I revisit one of the restaurants in the hope of reviving my The Diner experience. Every time I’m left disappointed however. I went to the Angel restaurant over the weekend and had the Eggs Benedict; the muffins were stale, the hollandaise sauce was cold and the whole thing was just a bit meh. The milkshakes are consistently good so perhaps I’ll pop in for a Hard Shake from time to time. However, until it steps up its game and returns to its former glory, me and The Diner are through!

This milkshake game is on point. Ya’ll don’t know. Quit your job and come spend your loot on this banana chocolate shake. Forget sex. F**** it. Ya’ll don’t need it. This milkshake is the new doggie style.

A great place for brunch (with boozy shakes!). Also, they do garlic butter fries. I don’t think I need to say more on that front, they ARE as good as they sound!
However, don’t try to go for the healthy-​sounding things, or the build-​your-​own stuff. Filth is what they do best!

I will preface this review by saying I really enjoy the food at The Diner, and I have had much better experiences at other locations. I am American, and whenever I crave a good ol’ burger in London I think of this chain.
That being said…
I couldn’t believe how terrible the service was when we ate at this location back in December. There was a booth just for staff where they are allowed to essentially sit, chat, and play on their phones. I was floored. That is basically all they did while we were there. It was near impossible to get anyone’s attention.
We were really disappointed. They never even offered to bring us another round of drinks.
Also, there were two tables seated near us filled with people who I can only assume were off schedule coworkers. When a waitress did come near our table it was only to fraternize with their friends before going back to the booth. Really unprofessional.

This place has some of the best shakes that I have tasted; the hard shakes are particularly delicious, but be warned with the high liquor content they are not for kids or the faint hearted. The booths were a little uncomfortable but there was a good ambience to the place.

A lovely place to sit but perhaps the most forgettable piece of meat I have ever encountered.

I was visiting some friends in london for the day and we met here for lunch. I didn’t really know what to expect but have to say the menu looked really nice. The staff were lovely and the atmosphere was quite ‘hip’.
I ordered a Snickers shake which was just as I imaged it would be– extremely thick and full of flavour.
I also had the California burger, cooked medium. It came out more medium rare but the toppings (which included pineapple and guac) we’re fresh and tasty. I also had a Coke.
I was a little stunned by the price when the bill came out, but maybe this is standard for the area? There was a 35 minute wait on food which was also a bit of a shock.
Other than the bill everything else was really nice.

Feels like America when I was eating here. This place offers you a range of burger selection complete with the sides you have been craving for and milkshakes. Their burger is mouthful, it literally is the size of my mouth. But it tasted so well, even better with the fries and a bit of jalapeño to spice it up.
The staff was wonderful. They asked me how I want the meat to be and recommended if I wanted any sides with it. When my food came, it looked so yummy and made me decided to put away the utensils and ate it with bare hands instead. The beef patty was just like the way I wanted it and it comes with bright red jalapeño and blue cheese, all served to perfection. All the fries were good. The sweet potato was special and cheesy fries was absolutely luscious.
I could still smell the blue cheese and onion on my fingers after the diner. But I loved it. It made me want to come back.

I would first like to mention that I was tempted to give this place more stars just to pull up the average! Lots of old one star reviews that certainly didn’t reflect my own experience.
There’s a good choice of food here, which once ordered is served piping hot within a reasonable time of ordering from my experience. I enjoyed my meatloaf, although the mashed potatoes were a little too authentically American Diner-​y for my liking– sloppy and tasteless.
My partner had a steak sandwich– of which was served rare just as he had requested. He assures me that it was very tasty. His additional side of onion rings were beer battered and so crispy that I had to ‘help him out’ with a few of them ;)
The reason this place doesn’t get higher than an average rating is the staff. They somehow make a very small chain restaurant feel like a very large chain restaurant. As in they don’t seem enthused about anything that they’re doing etcetera. This could be due to the fact that service charge is added to your bill, so they don’t feel like they have to earn it etc. Nobody was particularly rude so we paid the charge, but we had multiple uncaring servers so wouldn’t have tipped otherwise.
Milkshakes, coke floats and diner booths along with good standard American food make this a place that’s A-​ok for lunch around Islington though.

I have no idea what other people are talking about. Maybe I and the people I have converted to Diner believers are exceptionally lucky, but I have been there… maybe 7 – 8 times and can tell you that the food is amazing, the serving sizes are… WOW (thank God for doggy bags), and the Long Island Iced tea is the best around. They also accommodate all kinds of mixes you tell them to make for you and any and all alterations to the food order. I did have one problem with my pancakes for dinner once– I waited for them about 25mins, but they put an extra one as an apology and the waiter did apologise thoroughly. Understandable as he was a newbie. You get seated as soon as appropriate seating is opened, the people there remember you quickly and strike up a conversation easily. Cool atmosphere in general and great food and drinks– what more could you want?

The service was quick, but the food was average. I’ve had much better.

Strangely, despite it’s bad rep, I always have a great time when I go to this branch of the Diner. Perhaps it’s the company (I only ever go here to meet one of my close friends — and our monthly meal is now the only time I see her) but I’ve also enjoyed the food too.
Usually, we meet for brunch and I get pancakes with a side of chorizo. Sweet blueberry pancakes with spicy chorizo is just a flavour win in my book.
This time, however, it was to try to Diablo burger which is rumoured to be one of the best in London. As a self proclaimed burger aficionado, I had to try it to find out.
First off, the damn thing is massive so a size win! Too often, the burger is tasty but too small to really satisfy (I’m looking at you, Burger & Shake). This thing is a hefty two-​hander with a patty the size of some longhorn cattle.
The patty was a tad over cooked (more medium than requested medium rare) but still juicy enough to be enjoyable. The meat selection could have done with a bit more beefy sirloin taste to give it more body. So, decent patty but not worthy of a top spot by any measure.
The bun was a bit boring to be honest and fell apart halfway through. I think it was a generic white bread bun so overall — epic fail.
Toppings consisted of melted cheese and lots of chilli. Now this was my type of burger! Sadly, while tasty, it lacked the level of heat I had been led to expect and had hoped for. Maybe for the average Englishman it was on fire, but for one brought up on curry instead of applesauce, it just wasn’t good enough.
Overall, a perfectly enjoyable burger although a bit pricey at around 13 squids. I won’t be back for the burger (but will be for pancakes and the company) as there are many better tasting and better value options around!

We went for breakfast. It was disastrous.
Ages to get seated. Ages to order. Then absolutely AGES to get food.
45 minutes for pancakes? And when we asked where they were we were told it was because they were made from scratch…
1) making pancake batter from scratch takes approximately 3 minutes
2) why are you making it from scratch when it should really stand for a while anyway
3) I don’t believe you
45 minutes later, our food NEARLY made it to the table before being spectacularly launched into the air off the tray by the waitress, to land in a puddle on the floor right next to us. I nearly cried in frustration.
Then the order was wrong. We had to raise our voices and get rather cross to get a discount on a breakfast which took an hour to arrive, was incorrect, and didn’t taste that great anyway. It was greasy.
The staff were both unfriendly and complacent.
The coffee was lukewarm and too small, and not really a flat white.
Don’t go here for breakfast. Or in fact at all.
.

Holy cow Batman!
I went here for their Thanksgiving/​Christmas meal, and was super impressed! The menu was creative in their take on American foods (macaroni and cheese pops anyone?) and everything was absolutely delicious.
The buttered rum was pretty weak both in terms of flavour and rum, but at least they tried.
Now after all the effort, none of the music was American. Having asked about the tunes, the poor waitress informed us she had no say in the music and had a few people pointing out the same misstep.
The complaint I do have is that the dessert was incredibly poor, and two of my group had paper in our desserts. Obviously our dessert were shipped to the restaurant, and the paper that wrapped it was included. I am guessing because we lacked fiber in our diets.

As an American… I wasn’t super impressed, but then again, there are plenty of restaurants like this in the states that are mediocre or just plain bad, so in someways it is kind of authentic (do you see what I did there… yeah…). It was rather dark inside and I would’ve appreciated a bit of light to see my food…
The staff were really attentive. My friend ordered the Lumberjack Breakfast and a hazelnut milkshake. She said that it wasn’t like she remembered it, but the milkshake was delicious. I ordered the Philly Cheesesteak and Chili Cheese Fries. The Philly Cheesesteak wasn’t really what I was expecting, but for an average steak sandwich it was ok, but to clarify, it was not a Philly Cheesesteak. The Chili Cheese Fries were my favourite part of the meal… not the best I’ve had, but they did the trick. In fact, I wished I had ordered the chili, because I quite liked the flavour. Adding extras gets expensive, but the extras might just be the best part of the meal. However, in true American style, they did let us split our tabs!

So shockingly bad.
But I’m a sucker for a booth and a milkshake.

The mac and cheese + hard milkshake combo is really good and keeps me coming back but the service is the slowest and nobody ever refills your water. It’s actually so frustrating that I’ve started getting my food to go and just eating it at home, that was I can get a drink when I need one.
I do appreciate this place for having French’s mustard though. What a nice American touch!

We ended up here because we were in a rush and the lines at the Breakfast Club, Elk in the Woods and S&M were too long. Well, we could have waited in the Breakfast Club queue 15 deep and still would have got out faster than at the Diner.
We were seated immediately, but the whole event took forever. The food took a long time and getting the bill took a long time and never did the waitress bother to give us a friendly notice or acknowledgement during that time or refill my cup of coffee without waving her down.
I had heard they had good blueberry pancakes and regretted not ordering them because my huevos rancheros were basically disgusting. The beans were SOOOO bad – maybe they spiced them with oregano and basil? Some flavor was so off – the pico sucked and the guac was nasty!
Just in general, not a fan.