Our reservation was for the Festive Menu
Upon arrival there was a queue, and despite our reservation the woman at front desk could not manage the queue. The woman ahead of me said “they overran on the last tables and our table is not ready yet”. We had to wait as if we came in on a walk-in basis.
We were seated at 5pm and counted several waiters, unaware we were not addressed for at least 15minutes. After no service, I asked a waiter for some water which took 20 minutes to arrive.
I asked a waiter for the correct festive menu after being given the regular menu. The festive drinks were not there so I asked for that menu and the non alcoholic menu. The first 15 minutes of being seated went from zero service, zero menus relating to our booking, to 4 requests for a waiter to bring water + 3 menus.
The drinks took 23 minutes to receive.
The festive menu includes Christmas crackers which we had to ask for. Also included are “mince pies served with a selection of teas and coffees” - after a excruciatingly slow food service, my mum asked for latte to have after her dessert.
My mums coffee was incorrectly brought out before the dessert which she did not request. After the dessert, at 19:15 we asked for her latte which we received at 19:50 to receive, over 40 minutes later.
At this point we were fed up, angry, upset.
The latte arrived over frothy with minimal coffee inside, and at this point we were ready to leave. We spoke to the head waiter of our dissatisfaction and experience. He offered to remove the the latte from the bill and after leaving we saw he did not remove it at all but charged us the full price of the festive menu and the service charge.
We were not offered the mince pies and had to ask for them as we paid for them. We waited with our coats on, over 20 minutes to receive 3 tiny mince pies.
We were we offered the teas and coffees we paid for at £55 a head, yet we left having paid for them without the full experience plus service charge for zero service.