I think you really need to re-rate and re-review the two star Tom Aitkens as your guide bears little relation to the mixed reviews on your site. Put simply Aitkens is charging two or three michelin star prices for food that scrapes a star, and service that falls well below that.
I and three friends visited the restaurant on a Friday evening, it was three quarters full, maybe repeat visits are down given the experience of eating there is not one everyone would want to repeat.
In detail, the room was lovely, the atmosphere fine, but the food was inconsistent. Lobster was described by friends who had it as virtually raw and too fishy, while a lemon turbot had a citrus flavour so overpowering that one could barely taste the fish, the same was true of the smoked beef. The latter was an interesting dish, but at £40 one would have expected to be able to taste the beef. The food seems focused on very powerful, concentrated flavours. There is clearly skill here, but not the subtlety one would expect.
Service again was mixed. There was little warmth, charm or personality in the service. The whole experience felt expense accounty, and corporate. One felt they didn't rally care about the individual.
There is distinct waft of arrogance in some of the old school French service, one had the sense that they felt you should be grateful to eat there. Arrogance would perhaps have been better justified if all the staff had expertise. Our rather sniffy french waiter for example poured one bottle of freshly opened red wine into a glass that was half full of another bottle that had been open for two hours, so ruining the flavour of the wine that had had time to breath. One would not have minded so much if it hadn't been a £200 bottle of bordeaux he was ruining.
It's a shame because some of the food was exquisite, but overall, your money is better spent elsewhere. One does wonder sometimes whether the industry becomes caught up in all the hype and can't actually see the reality of a restaurant… More