The Secret Drawing Room at Benugo @ The BFI Southbank

The food portions were laughably small, definitely not worth the money and not as described. The fact this was meant to be enough food for 40 people was a bit of a joke

I felt that the catering was a bit light for a lunch - but it worked well for this event as we were all standing and mingling for most of the event. The catering itself was delicious!

Contact person on tagvenue disappearing weeks before the event without a word. Phone number not working. Lots of confusion, changes and poor communication causing stress from uncertainty and lack of confidence in the event going smoothly. Original contract contained wrong location and number of guests. Got resent the same wrong contract tree times. Venue booked from 18:00 - 00:00 but venue closed 23:00. Agreed to the earlier start time of 16:00 but this had not been communicated to any other staff and far travelling guests were unable to access the venue or get drinks from the prepaid tab. Had it been a surprise party with more time needed for decoration set up etc it would likely have been ruined. Deadline for food orders and catering got pushed forward, and because menu was going to change was told after making my initial order that only canapes would be available at £1,120. Never got sent the new menu despite multiple requests. Therefore ordered no food or catering, however arriving on the day, the menu had not changed anyway. (Dodged a bullet with the canapes). Prepaid tab of £660 went over and was asked whether I wanted to keep the tab going despite having agreed to move to cash bar after tab ran out. Went to pay the £40 something that ran over at the end of the evening but a different person told me I didn't have to pay (but since two people said different things I am still waiting to see if there will be an invoice or not). Was told cake was allowed, but no sparkling candles. Therefore left sparkling candles behind and instead purchased multiple options of regular candles for the birthday cake only to learn no candles of any type was allowed. This turned into a scene, however the staff was always polite, apologised and tried their best to accommodate. In general, anything discussed and agreed on tagvenue did not seem to have been communicated to anyone. If it was not for all the stress this caused, the venue was well worth the price.