Rasa D.
Yelp
Our visit to the Savoy Grill was supposed to be the food highlight of our trip to London, but it turned out to be quite the opposite.
We arrived right on time for our reservation and were told that our table wasn't ready and that it would be a while so we should go to the American Bar in the Savoy Hotel and have a drink. We're usually fine with a little pre-dinner drink (and don't get me wrong, the American Bar had INCREDIBLE cocktails), but it was a very pricey mistake on the Savoy's part, as we were left killing time in the American Bar drinking £25 cocktails that we didn't plan on, nor did we need. We've been to many upscale restaurants and whenever we've been left waiting by that, cocktails are compliments of the house as an apology gesture - PERIOD.
So, £50+ and 2 cocktails later our table was ready. We were seated and immediately offered champagne by waiter #1 from the champagne cart, and since we had just killed time with cocktails we were pretty hungry and wanted to just get right down to ordering our meal - no frills, no extras. We came for the beef wellington, and that's what we wanted - not to mention after seeing the pricetag on the cocktails at American Bar we were a bit leery of ordering champagne from a cart with no price tag on it. It very well could have been £50 a glass the way things were going, and we didn't want or need it.
Waiter #2 comes and offers us water, which we accept, and then she says something about a 9 course meal which we had signed up for (which we hadn't) and walks away before we could question it. Were we really getting forced into 9 courses at this point? I was honestly so confused and then had remembered it came up as an "offer" when booking on OpenTable. To be clear, I had not accepted this offer nor was it stated anywhere on my reservation, so we figured we'd just catch her when she came back around and tell her what we'd ACTUALLY like to order.
Waiter #2 walked by several times but passively ignored us probably about 5 times, when waiter #3 came and took our order. We ordered beef wellington, as planned, as well as a side of truffle mashed potatoes.
While seemingly inputting our order on the computer about 5 feet away from our table, waiter #2 is lurking behind waiter #3 scolding him for taking our order - because of course, we WANTED the 9 course special (wrong). She investigates the 9 course debacle and seems frustrated when she seems to find no record of it, as we tried to tell her (if only she had given us the time of day). She gives us a dirty look and proceeds to ignore us for most of the remainder of the evening.
During the 45 minute waiting period for our beef wellington, not a single person stopped to ask if we needed anything, despite multiple tries to get their attention to bring more water to the table. We finally got the attention of waiter #4, who we hadn't seen before but seemed to work there and made eye contact with me so I asked. He accepted to bring us more water, but then never came back.
Let me preface my review of our actual food by saying I've watched most of Chef Ramsay's shows and seen him cook beef wellington on TV many times. I had visions of grandeur - perfectly cooked, delicious, melt in your mouth goodness. Our actual meal was not a vision at all, in fact. It was bland, uninspired, and just not cooked to perfection at all. The meat was fine - not good, not bad. There wasn't enough puff pastry. The sauce they put on the meat tasted like store-bought au jus from a packet. And the truffle mashed potatoes were not only small, but they were essentially just mashed potatoes with a couple of tiny truffles sprinkled on top.
While our entree was disappointing, we saw our neighboring table order a baked alaska and it looked good so we decided to order, and honestly it was the highlight of the meal. Without that, between the tardiness of our table, atrocious service (It's still absolutely appalling to me that we were passed off to FOUR different waiters and not one was even the slightest bit personable), and lackluster food, I wouldn't have had a single star to give the Savoy.
Next time I'm in London, I will definitely go elsewhere - somewhere that values service more and doesn't discriminate against those who don't want a ton of extras with their meal. Sorry Savoy, not everyone needs a 9 course feast.