Kew Reviews

We ate at the Orangery on a recent visit to Kew.
Chose from the hot counter, fish cake and roasted vegetables with a herb crumb – both with chips and green vegetables.
Both choices disappointing – chips were cold and v small portion, vegetables very soggy, fish cake bland and no sign of herb crumb on the roasted vegetables.
Felt that was also very expensive at £35 for the two. We were charged for main meals plus two sides – surely the meal includes the sides?
Served on very small paper plates…
Prices do not match the experience

I love Kew Gardens, usually.

However, the hypocrisy around food is bad -- they're making a massive fuss about sustainable food right now, and yet the availability of plant based / vegan options is still very poor.

Combine that with the extortionate prices and the lack of clear allergen / vegan / vegetarian information on the actual menu items, and it can turn a good day out into a trying experience.

Therefore, my advice is, if you have any special dietary needs, you'll do better to take your own food, rather than deal with an appalling lack of clarity and choice once you're inside.

This rating and review is just for the Pavilion Bar and Grill which should be avoided! Ordered two caesar salads and two small glasses of wine. The salad was tiny but perhaps that was a good thing because it managed to be simultaneously dry (the chickpeas) and soggy (the unappealing lettuce). It had zero flavour and I forced myself to eat this loveless dish. So disappointing. Never again! The bill was £42…

I have been a member of Kew Gardens for many years and I love going to explore the gardens throughout the seasons.
My issue is, today I visited the Pavilion bar and grill (not sure who came up with ‘bar and grill’ as it is not either of these). I found a menu whilst queuing at the till, only one menu available to look at! Several people queuing commented that there was nothing on the menu they would want as it was a vegetarian only menu. This is not a good marketing ploy, why aren’t meat dishes on the menu? You cannot force people to eat vegetarian meals if they don’t wish to. This is completely prejudicial and extremely bad form.

I’m reviewing Wakehurst which is part of Kew.

I’m fed up with the constant closures which go on for months. You never see anyone working on the renovations/changes.

It took months and months last year to mend the top of the walled gardens. Shut at their peak. It took months to build some steps which go up to some hut by the pond. The latest closure says - closed for 2 weeks. So far it’s been closed for 2 months. No sign of any workmen there working on it. I think you have ruined the little stream by putting a boardwalk over it. I’ve taken lovely photos of the stream in the past. No more. You’ve hidden it with an ugly path. Where’s the logic?

Where are the iris? You haven’t put them back. No pretty bulbs by the pond either this year as you dug it all up.

If you are planning work. Get the materials and workmen booked in and actually work on the job until it’s finished.

Wakehurst was always my favourite all time place and I’ve been visiting for 15 years. No more. I’m sick and tired of driving a long way there to find the areas STILL closed. I’m not renewing my membership.

You never fix the extremely boggy patch of path in the Loder Valley. The choice is to climb up a bank and hope you don’t slip or just walk through it and ruin your shoes. The mind boggles.

You are meant to be conservationists and today I saw you’ve cut down lots of trees and cleared a large area just to put a bench by the lake. The bench is so close to the lake on a slope that you could easily fall in the lake trying to sit on it.

Whoever thinks these things out needs a new job!

Disappointed with my first visit to Kew. On a positive note it is a large park with wonderful plants outside and two large glass houses for tropical plants. The catering facilities were good. On the not so good side: The parking is limited so to make sure we could park the car we left the car in Kingston and took the frequent 65 bus which worked well but made our journey time much longer. There is little documentation about the history of Kew and Kew Palace and limited detail on most of the plants on display. It was a tiring and expensive day and not sure it was worth the effort.

The cost of eating at Kew Gardens, on top of the high car park charges means that Kew, despite being a place we love, is no longer a good value place to visit.

I have been visiting Kew since I was taken by my mother as a child in the 1950's. Although I can no longer afford membership, a trip to Kew is always a highlight in my year. In October I visited during the Japan festival which overall was not up to the usual Kew standard - not all the exhibits were open and those that were were underwhelming. The gardens too were under par, which I assume was due to Covid. However, the main gripe is the way the garden is developing away from its egalitarian ethos and horticultural roots. The gardens are negatively impacted by the focus on fine dining, 'experiences' and events.
There's nowhere inside the gardens to get a simple cuppa, a sandwich, or a bun at a reasonable cost. On the day I visited, the queue for a hot drink at the Orangery was slow and our drinks were lukewarm by the time we sat down. Cash is no longer accepted (why?), so I couldn't treat my friend. The final insult was a 15p levy for a paper cup on the pretence of being eco. Please KG save yourselves a fortune - dump the fancy pants marketing and get back to basics, namely the wonderful landscaping, and plants. Everything else is window dressing.

Lovely place to visit and so peaceful

Great place to visit but sometimes its just not quite enough to enjoy the place itself.

Five stars but only to the gardens themselves and not the facilities. To be fair the few staff we dealt with were very nice. The place however is very poorly sign posted. Not enough toilets (the ones that are there almost appear to be purposely hidden). The lift to The Tree top (one of the highlights of the gardens) was out of service preventing many people from visiting what is a magnificent feature. The spiral staircases in the Glass rooms were all cordoned off. Finally and I appreciate this will sound rather penny pinching but the shop selling cans of Diet Coke for £2.40 is just extortionate (especially as the nearest ASDA are selling them for 27p). We heard numerous other customers complain about prices also. Overall it all seemed to be underfunded and rather disorganised. Again though and notwithstanding our gripes. The gardens in isolation are absolutely breathtaking and a real feature of London.

Kew Gardens should shed any pretension and rename itself Queue Gardens.
There was a long queue at Victoria Gate. It was the most enlightening experience for visitors to pre-pay for an e-ticket and pre-book an entry slot and only to find themselves being funnelled in to a line with people who didn’t bother to book in advance at all. To add insult to injury, there was a near-empty members-only entrance, with a staff member brusquely reminding plebs who were most unfortunate not to inherit the golden tickets from their parents that they were in the wrong queue.
There was a long queue around the Temperate House. The Japanese lady’s calligraphy performance would have been fascinating, if only one had been lucky enough to get in before the show started.
There was a long queue in front of the Japanese food stall. Half-starved visitors who, after waiting for 45 minutes to partake in the most profound cultural immersion in the Temperate House, craved an okonomiyaki were only told on the spot that the stall was shut at 3pm. NO FOOD FOR YOU!
There was a long queue in front of the Pavilion. The smiling lady who was there to regulate the queue did everything she could to prolong the queueing.
Queues are symptoms of organisational failures. Kew Gardens, a formerly venerable institution, is nowadays run like a third-rate amusement park, minus all the amusement.
I suggest that the Kew Gardens management team queue by the pond in front of the Palm House, and take a long, hard look at themselves.

Visited the gardens for the first time. Lovely day out in beautiful surroundings. We had an hour tour with Peta to begin. She gave us just the right information for us to go on and see the areas that were of particular interest.

The gardens deserve more than 3 stars but I was so angry that in the 6 hours my Husband and I were there I could get nothing to eat that was gluten free, except a really small cake.
As a coeliac, I expected to be able to have a salad or something similar but no, nothing.
This is quite disgusting, it was my Husbands Birthday so I didn't want to make a fuss.
We had coffee and a small g/f cake when we went in and them looked for lunch later. Apparently after lunches have stopped in the one café that said it had options, nothing could be provided except the same little cake which I had had earlier! Poor show Kew!!!

Beautiful gardens and as a local, the memberships are good value.