One of the worst dinner experiences I've had in a long time, in any country. Just the rudest service, some very not good food and cocktails, and all for a pretty penny.
This was the "nice" dinner I'd worked so hard to pre-book for a girls' trip to London -- on a recommendation of a foodie friend who lives here. We could only get in for an early dinner in the lounge area, but we were excited about that regardless. We got all dressed up, were all smiles on our way in, loved the little table we were seated at, thought the decor and music were fantastic, and had high hopes for a great experience. Not to happen.
After about 15 minutes of perusing the menus, we are greeted by our server. Right away, we can tell she is stressed, angry, and unhappy to be there. When she asks if we're ready to order -- we ask if we can start by ordering cocktails and small plates first. Huffy and puffy, she says no. She will only take a full order so she can course things out accordingly. Ok, we say, we will do so shortly. She stomps away for another 15 minutes of waiting (during which I see her running around like she's angry at everyone, arguing animatedly with someone who is seemingly her manager, etc). Finally she comes back, and we kindly order 3 cocktails, 3 smaller plates, and a larger wok of seafood to share. The first plate that arrives at our table is the wok of seafood -- which makes me wonder what "coursing" the server had talked about -- but fine. This wok of seafood stinks to high hell of an extreme amount of what is seemingly fish sauce. One of my friends is nauseated just by the smell of it, so it might have been nice to mention such a strong flavor on the menu ("latin sambal" is not at all what this is, sorry). Regardless, my other friend and I try to eat it. It is all overwhelmingly salty and a little bitter, has just a couple of pieces of seafood, and mostly consists of asparagus. We ate maybe 1/4 of the dish just to eat something, but it was honestly very not good. For $40!
Ok, we "eat" this seafood wok and 2 smaller plates that arrive -- which are pretty good, but nothing to write home about or charge exorbitant amounts for. I've had plenty of better sashimi and empanadas for 1/4 of the price. But here's the fun part: it's an hour into dinner, we're done with 3 of 4 dishes at this point -- and our cocktails still aren't there (maybe since we weren't "allowed" to order them earlier). We try to just cancel them -- right as they come. The staff is kind enough to comp them after we complain about the timing. Which is a blessing, since one of these $20 cocktails tastes overwhelmingly of spice (not spicy, but like Christmas), and mine tastes like what the table's consensus seems to be air freshener.
And GET THIS. We haven't seen our server since we ordered! She's just disappeared. No one EVER asked how our food was during our entire meal. No one checked in on us until we tried to complain. Eventually, when we ask, someone tells us our server had gone on break. Glad someone told us and tapped in for her -- not. It honestly boggles my mind how they charge these prices for this "amazing experience" and then just treat you so rudely. And it's not like we were rude to anyone. We were all patience and smiles at the start. We tried to be polite when we complained about our cocktail timing, not yelling or rude. So I really just don't get it.
I'm just really sad we not only spent any money here, but also that one of our few nights in London was wasted on this instead of what could have been at least a decent restaurant. read more