Brasserie Roux
Wednesday 6th September, 2006
French
8 Pall Mall,
Actual price per head: £30
Nearest tube: Piccadilly (Bakerloo Line and Piccadilly Line)
Comments
This restaurant charges £15 for any ‘no-show’s. Dee M., Valentino C. and his partner Enrico did not bother to turn up or let us know in advance. Needless to say they are on the list of people not to invite in future.
My review of the restaurant is somewhat mixed. We initially booked for half past seven. The restaurant asked us to move that to eight o’clock to avoid overlapping another booking they had. We obliged and changed the start time.
Although they had known for weeks in advance the size of our group, they split us over two tables but didn’t tell us that in advance of our arrival. My table placed our orders at five past eight, but our starters did not arrive until nine o’clock, by which time the other table had finished their main course.
At nine fifteen our table were served their main courses, except for Charles who had somehow been forgotten by the kitchen. All in all a very unsatisfactory situation as we were not able to mix and mingle with the people at the other table.
There were various complaints about portion sizes. In particular those who had the Sea Bream as a main course were not happy that they received a plate with a small portion of fish with some sauce but nothing else; no vegetables were included - NOT a balanced meal.
Also, the general view was that the staff were not friendly.
The manageress (Nathalie Esmuz) apologised - she left early - and in fairness it must be said that the bill was adjusted in response to our anger at the poor level of service. It is unacceptable that the kitchen chose to serve a number of room service orders in the hotel, before us, in spite of the fact that we had booked weeks in advance and had even rearranged our start time to make life easier for the restaurant/kitchen.
In response to a letter of complaint the restaurant sent the following:
Thank you very much for taking the time to send me your comments about your experience whilst dining in Brasserie Roux on Wednesday evening. Your feedback is extremely valuable and helps us to constantly review and improve all aspects of the service that we offer our clients.
I have now had the opportunity to discuss all of the points you raised with the Brasserie manager and I would like to assure you that the issues have been dealt with at the highest level. Service such as you describe is completely unacceptable for any reason, and I can assure you that it is not something that the Brasserie is associated with, or something that we will tolerate. Both myself and Mr Roux were saddened that such service levels could be demonstrated in the Brasserie and the appropriate steps have been taken to ensure that these kind of incidents will never be repeated with any other guests in the future.
With respect to your comments about the food, these have all been addressed with our chef and I can only assure you that your experience was extremely rare and unfortunate as we pride ourselves on the quality and value that our menus offer.
I very much hope that we will have the opportunity to welcome you back to the Brasserie to restore your confidence in the Roux name and to that end I would like to offer you a complimentary dinner for two people. I would be very grateful if you could forward me your postal address by email so that I can send you a voucher in the mail.
Please do not hesitate to contact my office directly if there is anything further that I can do to be of assistance in relation to this matter or any other and thank you once again for taking the time to forward me your very valuable feedback.
Yours sincerely, Hugues Jaquier - General Manager ||| Copy: Albert Roux
The return visit
I went back on Tuesday 21st with my brother, Scott, to take them up on their offer of a free meal.
We had a drink in the bar, and then a pre–dinner glass of Champagne at the table. With dinner we had a bottle of Sancerre. We both had huge bowls of the French onion soup which was excellent. Scott had the Dover sole and I had a steak. Both portions were large. Scott had the clafouti for dessert and I had a pineapple carpaccio. We accompanied the puddings with a glass of dessert wine each. Then we both had a double espresso which was very good. It was a lovely meal, with good service, and apart from some bad news during dinner I had a good time. The restaurant put a lot of effort into redeeming their previous failure and deserve credit for doing so.
Attendees
Andy M., Brian M., Charles B., David E., Fred D., Gareth H., George G., Gilles C., Ian S., Jeremy P., Kevin S., Laurence S., Peter J., Richard G., Richard W., Royston G., and Steven V.