David's Reviews

As a regular diner at this fine restaurant I am happy to report that the standards of service, food and drink are being maintained at the highest level.

It is always a real pleasure to eat there, whether it is a quick pre or post theatre meal or a longer more relaxed fine dining experience. Lunch is always really good value and beautifully served, either quickly if that is what you need or more lingering if you have the time.

We had Sunday lunch at the Wolseley on Easter Day 12th April 2009. This was the 3rd year in succession that we had done this. It is becoming something of a tradition.

The service was very good and our particular waiter was attentive and knowledgeble. A very good bottle of Gevery Chambertin was thoroughly enjoyed by both of us.

My starter was a tart of Reblechon and Tomato. The pastry was wonderful and the flavour of the cheese mixed superbly with the cherry tomato topping.

As always, the Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding was beautifully presented. The Yorkshire Pudding was a beautiful colour and not over cooked as can happen in some restaurants.

The really nice thing about the Wolseley is that it manages to maintain it's standards in both service and food quality and presentation. It is always a pleasure to dine there.

We returned to this restaurant for my birthday on Monday April 20th after an absence of about a year. On the night we were there something must have gone horribly wrong. We waited for 10 minutes to be offered a menu and that only happened after I complained. The explanation being that they don't offer menus until all the ‘preliminaries’ have been completed. So you are clearly expected to make your wine selection before deciding what you will have to eat. On being presented with the menu it was explained that the starters are on the left and main courses on the right. Having eaten in quite a few fine dining restaurants in my 62 years I think I was capable of working this out and found the comment quite patronising. The food was average and the cheese selection very limited. We were told that this usually happens on a Monday evening when they have fewer cheeses to choose from. I chose not to have a desert and opted for a 15 year old malt whisky. I was offered a raspberry desert to accompany it. Any self respecting whisky drinker would have been as horrified as I was.

On the positive side we met an excellent Sommelier whose knowledge and expertise was superb. She also excelled at customer service which was generally sadly lacking in the restaurant that evening. It may have been that we were just unlucky but at those prices it will be a long time until we give them another opportunity.

It was a great shame and it felt like an old friend was suffering badly.

In the last few weeks we have eaten at both Le Gavroche and The Ritz, both of which were excellent. With effective competition like that Gordon Ramsay at Claridges wil have to look to it's quality and service to compete for business.