To put the record straight, my tickets for Kiss Me, Kate at The Barbican cost £29.50 each plus £4 booking fee and NOT £39.50 as I stated.
While I’m posting this errata I thought I’d just add a short review of other aspects of The Barbican but mainly my thoughts on the Barbican Kitchen. We’d earlier had lunch at Kew Gardens but obviously needed something else to eat before the performance in the theatre. We’d arrived by train at Barbican station and followed the signs to The Barbican; just before we got there we passed a Cote restaurant. I’ve only been to The Barbican once before and I think this Cote was where we ate. However, it was a sunny late afternoon and I suppose we wanted to see what else was available so kept walking. We walked through the ground floor of the Barbican Centre browsed the book and gift shops and then went out onto the Lakeside Terrace. People were sitting outside with food and drinks enjoying the sun before it dropped behind the buildings and being there seemed more appealing than being indoors so we went into The Kitchen to see what food was on offer. There’s a sandwich/toastie/flatbread or Build Your Own Nourish Bowl Salad counter. Another counter had hot food, street food or pizzas. There were various hot food options but nothing really appealed to me so I wandered up and down trying to decide and thought about leaving to find somewhere else but by this time my son had chosen the Nourish Bowl option – he had a large bowl of beetroot and carrot salad, another two salads and tuna on the top – so I more or less had to remain where we were. I queued to pay for his food and coffee (which cost £14.25?) then went and ordered a mozzerella and pesto flatbread, which was duly toasted and served with a large side of rocket salad. I queued up again to pay for my food. It was hot inside but was warned by the cashier that the seats outside were wet from the fountains so we sat down and I ate the most unexciting, dry and boring food I’ve had in a long time; my son let me have some of his beetroot salad which was very good. OK, my choice was not expensive – £8.95 I think – but so disappointing and I regretted not having tried to get a table somewhere else, possibly the Barbican Brasserie on the next level up. I still wanted to sit outside so I got a can of cider (£6) from the chilled cabinet and queued up yet again to pay for that and we went outside to sit at a table for a while, at which point I was glad we hadn’t eaten there as pigeons were causing mayhem landing on tables.. All in all not a wonderful experience . Even the pear ‘cider’ turned out to be Swedish – you would think they could supply cider made in the UK. I quite like the brutalist architecture of the Barbican but find it difficult to negotiate around, inside and out; a few more signs would be helpful.
