Marco Pierre White Restaurants
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No better than meals served up at pubs…
No better than meals served up at pubs that use the company 3663...I'm not convinced they even had a chef in the restaurant! We complained at the time of our Christmas Day dinner but I can only assume that the restaurant was too embarrassed to report our complaint. They said they would but I suspect they hoped we would go away and that there would be no come back on them. We arrived at 1.20pm for a 2.00pm booking as the 4 of us intended to enjoy a pre-dinner drink...neither the Lounge Bar nor the restaurant bar were open. There were no Christmas crackers nor festive table decorations to indicate that this was a celebratory event. We were advised that our table was ready and we could sit there for a drink and were provided with the wine list and cocktail list. At this point we were advised that the Passion Fruit cocktail was not available to order. We were also asked if we would like any food with our drinks so we ordered bread and olives. When we were ready to order the drinks we had chosen two cocktails, only to now be told that no cocktails were available to order – the reason given “the delivery was late”. We ordered two soft drinks and a bottle of Pinot Grigio. The bread and olives never came and when we chased these up our first course choices had been plated up and were ready to serve. 1st course – all ok, except we weren’t sure which cutlery to use as a knife and fork had been placed on all the side plates and two sets flanked the place setting. 2nd course – Prawn Cocktail served with the bread already spread with margarine! The lettuce was full leaves, not shredded, which made cutting it up in a curved bowl really difficult. Was this really how it should have been presented? Were you ashamed that there was no butter and therefore you spread the margarine yourself in the hope we wouldn't notice? 3rd course: 2 x Beef Wellington – served with two ramekins of vegetables and one ramekin of roast potatoes to share. No horseradish or mustard was offered. The beef looked good but wasn’t particularly tender. 2 x Turkey dinner – two slices of turkey breast, roast potatoes, steamed (?) cubes of carrot, previously frozen sprouts, parsnips that had not been roasted, one “pig in blanket”, a small portion of stuffing and lukewarm gravy. We thought it had come from the carvery as it didn’t have the bread and cranberry sauces provided, as listed on the more expensive menu. We couldn’t believe the vegetables weren’t served separately as per the beef wellingtons...in fact the turkey dinners looked as they might in a school refectory. 4th courses: 2 x Panna cotta – apparently very nice although one was served with a soup spoon. 2 x cake with sherry syrup and cheese. The cake was dry with no trace of the sherry syrup and the cheese portions had sufficiently dried out for us to return the whole plate to the kitchen. Personally, I could see that only some of the cheese was replaced, not all of it. The cake was just as dry as before. 5th course: After a very long wait chased up the Afagato course, which, when it arrived, was fine. For a Christmas Day Dinner, we were expecting a first class meal, under the branding of Marco Pierre White. Instead we were given a 2nd rate meal where the food was extremely disappointing, both in taste and presentation. The service was very poor and, if you were unable to provide sufficient appropriately trained staff, you should have reduced the number of covers in the restaurant...or did you think your staff were sufficiently and appropriately trained? On a positive note, the table magician was excellent. The pianist was also good but it was a shame he wasn’t booked for the whole event.