Www.bycost­ello­⁠.com's review of Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley

Great tasting menu, and quite unusually it has some options to choose from in terms of main and desert courses; they were even happy for you to switch the odd course with something, albeit a scaled down version, from the a la carte menu.

That said, although the food was very good, it wasn’t amazing; it is either restaurant fatigue on my part or the dishes were lacking a little imagination and flair. Perhaps even it was my expectations badly managed as I’d repeatedly seen ‘better that Ramsey’ on various reviews.

The other problem, and some of this will sound like nit picking but the devil is in the detail as they say, and especially so for a 2 star restaurant with apparent sights on a 3rd. We were left on the table for far too long before the arrival of the champagne cart arrived, no one unfolded our napkins for us, on toilet visits we were left to find and ask ourselves on their location instead of been escorted, doors weren’t held open when going in and out of the restaurant, as the meal progressed and they got busier the wine for each course arrived later and later and after the food arrived but the real sin in my mind is that no one could be bothered to ask if we wanted a desert wine to go with our puddings.

When spending £400+ on dinner for two, I really expect to be pampered and spoilt in terms of ingredients, cooking and service. Whilst the food scored well the service really was a disgrace.

(as a side note and I’m not sure if this makes a difference, but Marcus works Mon-Fri and we went on a Saturday?!)