Chez Gerard Bishopsgate

Unfortunately the enjoyable lunch I had with my best friend ended BRUTALLY!! My friend had called the restaurant to make a booking and asked whether it would be ok for us to use the relevant discount voucher. With all that confirmed he messaged me to confirm our booking. We met up and had a nice meal, only to get a surprise when the bill came as the discount had not been applied. We therefore asked for this to be rectified. The Manager – a very abrupt woman – came back to inform us that because they had no evidence of my friend calling quoting the voucher we would not get the discount. We explained that this must have been an oversight by the receptionist on booking to which the Manager responded that regardless of whether there had been an oversight, she will take her employee's word over ours and would not apply the discount. The whole point of these discount offers is to encourage people to try out new places and the restaurants that are signed up to these types of schemes will know that the reason we come to their restaurant is not merely because it is “Chez Gerard” – in our case it was because it was one of the offers for today in the vicinity of work. Out of principle we decided to escalate this and asked to see the General Manager. My friend politely started to reiterate the situation when he was rudely interupted by the General Manager who with much disdain said: “Before you continue, I think my Manager made it VERY clear that the discount will not apply”. He did not want to even discuss the situation with us and even attempted to turn the tables on me to say that I was being rude when I was stating actual facts about the discrepancies between what his Manager and what he was saying. Overall disgusted with the way the situation was handled and how we were treated. You cannot accuse your customers of lying when there could have been a genuine oversight by your employee.

Having read the existing rating, I expected a disappointing evening. Far from it. The Bastille Day menu was excellent. The steak in particular was definitely not a “carpet tile”, as a previous reviewer had described it – on the contrary it was deliciously tender, perfectly rare, and served with a good intensely flavoured sauce. The service was attentive and pleasant, and we were offered the opportunity of a pause between courses. The room was pleasantly cool, which is not easy on a sticky London summer evening.

OK, it wasn't perfect – the fig jam with the pate de foie gras was thin and watery – but we had no other complaints, and we think your rating deserves a bit of a rethink.

I have been a number of times and always received good service and food.

Good for business.

I went to this restaurant last week and had an awful experience. I will never recommend this place to anyone…

1. We had a table of 10 people and had to ask the waiter/manager 3 times to order wine.
2. The waiter/manager told our table there were only 2 rib eye on the bone left so a couple of us changed to rib eye off the bone. When our order finally arrived, I was served with a rump steak as well as a couple of other people on our table. We questioned the waiter/managed who simply replied with 'the chef wouldn't do that.' Firstly, it was clearly obvious it was not rib eye and it was so infuriating that the waiter/manager would not accept that!
3. Finally, I ordered my rib eye blue and I was served with a medium to well done steak. I questioned again and he replied ' There is no such thing as blue’?! My response was – why wouldn't he tell me they could not do blue when I first ordered it!

For a bill of 500 pounds you would expect far better service and quality of food. If this is suppose to be a high-end French steak restaurant – then there is seriously something wrong.