TT (18 March 2009)

My friends and I decided to go to London for a long weekend. I immediately tried to get a reservation at one of Gordon's restaurants. I found a 7pm spot at Claridge’s on Sunday. The reason I gave the review 3 stars instead of 2 or 1 was because of the food and the sommelier - both were excellent, but, as for the rest of the service, that is what deserves a poor rating. Everything was fine as we waited before dinner in the lounge for the rest of our party, etc., but as soon as we were seated, things went wrong. One, we were seated right next to the kitchen, which was not a big deal but, our waiter, who asked us if we have dined with them before, went on to tell us how the restaurant prided themselves on service, etc., he immediately seemed like he was full of himself and I started to get a bad vibe. After looking at the gigantic wine list, we still didn't know what to order for drinks but had a good idea of what we wanted to eat. The waiter tried to talk us all into getting the prix fixe menu. He actually made us uncomfortable and upset one of our diners. Mind you, this was her first time to London, and was really looking forward to this dinner and was planning to order a la carte almost a week in advance! She was really upset into being pressured to not ordering what she wanted to. We had a couple other quirks with another diner's entrée choices, he was allergic to seafood, and overall, it really seemed that we were just putting our waiter out.

Saving grace was our Sommelier, he was talkative, friendly and we really enjoyed his choice in the bottle of wine and thought he was very professional and a pleasure. Fast forward to after dinner, not sure where the disconnect was, but we waited an hour for our check. Many tables had come and gone at this point and we really were concerned that no one brought us our tab. We finally asked the sommelier if he could inquire about the check and after about 15 more minutes it finally came. We were splitting the bill amongst credit cards and I happened to be in the bathroom when it came. I was told that the girl who brought the tab, stood there waiting for me to return and asked my dinner guests ‘if I knew that I needed to sign this’ and ‘I really need to sign this’ and stood there the entire time when I was in the restroom. After waiting over an hour for a check, I'm surprised that someone was so impatient for a signature for the 10 minutes I spent in the loo. Overall, after spending over $700 USD on dinner, I would have thought we would have been treated a little bit better. I'm very disappointed that my evening was such a disappointment. It really upset me that my dining experience at one of Chef Ramsay's restaurants was such an unpleasant experience. Again, the sommelier and the food quality was a saving grace, if it weren't for them, the evening would have been a disaster.

Sandy (16 August 2007)

My husband had treated us to a meal there in May and although the service was good, and as for some of the food, I did not expect to find crab shell in my meal. I thought I had broken a tooth as it was too thick to be egg shell, but I put my knife and fork down and could not finish the meal as it was a turn off. When the server took the plate away, my husband explained that I had found shell in my food. Their response - to take £5.00 off the meal, no apology! Also prior to the complaint we had felt we were getting adequate attention, and post complaint we had felt we were being rushed.