Bordeaux Quay

Dan J (2 February 2008)

This was our first visit to Bordeaux Quay, on Saturday at lunchtime. The first impressions were favourable - large, open dining area, tables well spaced apart - great for pushchairs, clean and modern. It was also busy, but not heaving. After we were pointed, not shown, to our table, we sat and waited, and waited for ten minutes before having to flag one of the staff down for a menu - not a good start.

After waiting for another ten minutes, we again had to flag someone down to take our order. We both decided to keep it simple and ordered bread and olives to start followed by moule frites. Our coffee was very good and was brought to our table by the barista after his attempts at attracting the attention of any of the waiting staff failed.

The bread and olives were quickly delivered to our table and a very generous selection it was too - four different types of fresh, homemade bread with olive oil and balsamic dip and large, plump juicy olives. Our water arrived sans glasses. Moules were also good. Not the largest I've seen but plenty of them and nice fresh homemade frites. These were brought over by the gentle man in charge of the front desk.

You may have noticed a pattern here. In fact, I'll go as far as saying that it was the worst I've ever experienced, and I've eaten out hundreds of times in over forty countries. In summary, the quality of service is incredibly disappointing, given that the food and drinks were actually very good, the location is great and the interior modern and stylish. I have never done this before but I'm contacting the owner directly with my feedback and if other people do the same, maybe this place will get the quality of staff it deserves.

J Ward (28 November 2007)

We took friends to BQ in the second week after it opened and ate upstairs. However, after all the pre-launch hype the whole experience proved to be exceptionally disappointing - and embarrassing for us as we had positively recommended the place to our friends. The service was very casual and confused. The quality and content of meal was extremely disappointing. It was very poor indeed said the two wives, who are excellent cooks themselves. The setting and ambience was, well just bland lacking in everything except space. We just shrugged, wrote off the better part of £140 and put the whole thing down to the settling in period a new business might need to get its act together. However, shortly after our visit we read an absolutely devastating critique of the place by a well respected restaurant critic in a national newspaper. He absolutely slammed the place - so it wasn’t just us. Even the professionals thought it was bad. This weekend we read another review of the restaurant by another nationally renowned critic and he gave BQ nine and a half on ten. Maybe the whole experience has improved. We are tempted to give it another try, but we hesitate to risk another very bad and expensive experience, especially when entertaining friends. Which restaurant critic was right and has the place really improved that much?

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