Chuck W.
Yelp
Even though I gave it two stars, I hate this place with a passion of a thousand suns.
Opentable thinks it's in the top 3 of London restaurants, so we were really excited to try this supposed hot-spot. And it was, they were really busy, especially at our 10 o'clock reservation time. We arrived, as I always do, on time, and were ready to get seated and eating.
Nope. We were invited to wait in the wine cellar with a glass of wine, and they led us to a maybe 6 ft x 4 ft room surrounded by wine. Not so much a cellar but a prison cell. There was a small table with some empty wine glasses and olive pits. I think at one point ages ago someone did enjoy some wine here, but it wasn't us, and it wasn't going to be us. We sat here waiting 20 minutes as my temper simmered.
Soon after, a well-off older gentleman and his party came in, and were also directed to the wine prison cell with no wine being served. After only a few minutes, he rightfully complained (he also had a reservation), and was sent some complimentary champagne. Um, hello?!? No one offered me any, so I was that guy, and asked...no, demanded it. We were given glasses, but it did nothing to quell my anger.
45 minutes after our reservation, we were finally seated. Only to be literally ignored for another half hour. You'd think I was kidding, as I know it sounds like I'm exaggerating, but all of this can be collaborated. We asked numerous people for a menu, but they said "I can't do it, I'm not the waiter, I'll get your waiter."
Finally, about 1.5 hours after we arrived, we were given our menus. I won't go more into detail about how terrible the service was, but we managed to stay for 4 courses, skipping dessert.
The food was actually decent - I remember a foie gras course being good, but there were more off-putting memories.
*English skills were really lacking here - almost no one spoke English well. Here! In London! In England!
*It was clear that employees had been trained to do their job, and only that. Therefore, if it was one person's job to clear plates, that's all he did. Even if he wanted to help you with something, he couldn't.
*We got stiffed on food. It was late, and they were probably running out - but I clearly saw 3 scallops on another diner's plate, whereas my dish only had 2. Yes, I noticed, I just didn't know what to do.
*This place smelled. Bad. We may have been right next to the kitchen, or a ton of smelly cheese (we were), but the whole place smelled off-putting. My sister thought it smelled like a bathroom or someone's BO.
The only redeeming quality about this place was the guy in charge of pouring water. He was incredible. This was his only job, and he did it so freakin' well. My water glass never hit the halfway mark, and he was sneaky fast at getting out of the way.
I think he knew service was going terribly - at one point, we made eye contact and he kind of gave me a look that said "yeah, I know it's bad, I can see your plates sitting here for a long time, but I'm not allowed to help you clean it up".
You couldn't pay me to go back there and eat.