Dined 11/8/11. Well hopes were high. Personally I was shaking with anticipation, we had previously been to Le Gavroche but this was the mecca of the Roux dynasty. We were a bit early for our table, so the staff put us in a side room and simply left us there. After 10 minutes I went to the reception and asked for menus and then ordered 2 coffees. When the waiter returned he took our order. I was having veal which then sparked a lengthy explanation of how it would be cooked the french way ‘pink’, I felt this was slightly patronising but I played along and saying that this was the way I liked it. By now the time of our booking had well past and we were left there again. Eventually I went and asked to be seated…all the wrong way round.
On to the meal. It was the first time my wife had eaten lobster and her response after was ‘is lobster supposed to be chewy?’ What a shame for such a sublime ingredient. Our main courses were steak (ordered rare) and veal. Both were over cooked, not a little bit but by a country mile. During the meal I stopped a waiter and asked for another glass of champagne, he simply did not understand the request. I asked him 3 more times with ever increasing simplicity but to no avail, in fact he did not say one word throughout. The wine that the sommelier ordered for us was fantastic and resonably priced, I was willing to pay alot more. I wanted to have the ‘selection of 6 desserts’ that were offered on the menu because I was finally going to taste a Roux dessert, 6 in fact. They were awful and tasteless. One even had white bread rolled thinly as a base and that is what it tasted like..odd. I got no prob paying £100's for meals but £24 for 2 black coffees, come on!!!
It was as if 1st year catering students had taken over the kitchen and there was no lecturer present. It was best summed up by my wife when she said it was as if another couple had ordered the exact same meal 3 hours earlier and had not eaten it, so it had been left to one side and then we came… More