Rules (35 Maiden Lane, London, WC2E 7LB) Yes it's a great room, and yes the traditional comfort food is very welcome on a cold, wet winter's day; the problem lies in the service. It is smug, complacent, inefficient and – to paraphrase an earlier reviewer – haughty.
Let's be quite clear: this is a £100-a-head restaurant. Compare the levels of service with other nearby and almost equally venerable institutions like Sheekeys or The Ivy. Rules doesn't come close.
A glance through the visitors' book provides some clues why this might be so, with page after page filled with (complimentray) comments from American tourists and anniversary celebrants. These are not potentially regular customers whose patronage needs to be encouraged; they are once-in-a-lifetime diners who are so distracted by the surroundings and the traditional “Britishness” of it all that they fail to notice the contemptuous manner in which they are treated.
Message to Richard Corrigan: Could you make Rules your next project and give it the kick up the backside it clearly needs.
Link to this reviewNovember 2008 | 
Michael W.50s, Male, United Kingdom