Bistro du Vin

A newish, large and expensively fitted-out opening right next to St.John, so a potentially risky venture for this hotel group.
No complaints about the food. But it is not cheap. Cripsy sweetbreads followed by a 300g sirloin with excellent fries cost me the best part of £40. My OH had a salad and steak tartare ( £15.95). Both were pronounced ‘good.’
But the wine is really where the bill starts to punish. A long, varied list, but no bottles under £20 and maybe half a dozen under £25. ‘By the glass’ is offered at 125ml – if you're a gannet like me, that's about three decent mouthfuls, hardly enough to see you through a starter (the NZ Pinot I had was lovely). For a restaurant that sells itself on wine, it was disappointing to see only five red halves – we had the cheapest, an average Jalabet Crozes, and that was £28. Except it wasn't. The bill for 2 starters, 2 mains, 2 glasses of wine and the half (plus service, VAT blah blah) – £136! Reeling, I checked it. They'd put the Crozes on at £39. Apologies and a re-offered bill. I checked it again. This time the glass of white was over-charged by £1.
I honestly think that waiter should check a bill before giving it to you – as ours cheerfully admitted, few customers do – and I could see the chef rather forcefully telling the waiter that as we left.

Perfectly nice, but unless you're teetotal, you might need to save up: which is perhaps not what a ‘bistro’ is about.

Top class service accommodated our non-booked party and made significant efforts to seat us.
We ate in their private room, the meat cellar, which was excellent.
Service was attentive throughout the evening, but never in-your-face.
Wine selection was easy as they were extremely knowledgeable and helpful.
Food was exactly as you expected. Simple and all about the product.
Will certainly head back to that table with an appropriate crowd.

I have been meaning to visit for BdV since opening as very local to my office. The week after opening staff were kind enough to show me around and it looked impressive, as did the menu and wine list. I was keen to try a steak on the Josper grill. So last Friday I went in a group of 6. We started in the bar area where there was an excellent choice of wines, beers and spirits. Service was fine although the barman did forget one of my fellow diner's drinks. Then, two drinks ordered as we were moved to our table didn't arrive and were chased up several times – and this is when the problems started. The breads came over and were very nice, especially the fruit bread, except they were taken away before we had finished. When asked to bring them back (3 different times) we never received the bread we had requested. It was early so the place wasn’t busy although it has quite a buzz because of the central open kitchen. We seemed to be asked by several staff if we were ready to order despite us all clearly still reviewing the menus. When I asked a waiter whether the toilets were through a door at the rear, he looked confused, then went through the door to check! Had he just started working there? Communication problems with the staff seemed to be the theme of the night with most speaking English as a second language. Our Italian waitress was nice but not very experienced and also struggled to understand us.

What of the food? Very nice. The foie gras parfait I had to start was excellent. The moules were also very good. However, the steaks were slightly disappointing. At the price level, you expect Gaucho / Goodman quality and taste. Alas this wasn’t the case. My bone-in sirloin was quality angus but lacked the expected flavour. Two of my fellow diners ordered Ribeye steaks. When they came out, one was a nice thick steak, the other very thin. When one diner asked why this was, the waitress said because the other diner had ordered a better ribeye – but there was only one on the menu! Side dishes turned up (more than we ordered in fact). Desserts were nice although I think the profiteroles would have been much nicer with cream rather than ice cream.

Then the next problem was the after-dinner whiskies. My friend ordered a large Jameson’s with ice. I ordered a Glenlivet Nadurra and asked for a small jug of water. When they came (a while later – we had to wait a lot for drinks), my whisky came with a glass of ice on the side. I asked for some water for it. The waitress asked if I wanted still or sparkling. She then came over with a bottle of mineral water and started pouring it in my water glass. She just didn’t understand it and you don’t expect this with a £55 service charge on its way. My friend’s whisky turned out to be a blended scotch so he had to send that back (the barman came out and was very apologetic blaming it on misinformation from the waitress).

The bill came to over £550 for 6. So comparable to Gaucho but with service nowhere near its level. The staff seemed inexperienced and unable to cope well in a fairly quiet restaurant. I wouldn’t go back which is a shame as I thought it had bags of promise. This is the site of the old Vic Naylor’s and I still think it is a great pity that ever closed.