During the World Cup, we’d had a great lunch with friends at Gordon Ramsay’s Union Street Café so, for our festive meet-up, we chose another of Gordon’s restaurants, The “Heddon Street Kitchen”:https://www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com/heddon-street-kitchen/ which is just off Regent Street.
Our booking for four was at 12.30pm on a Friday in mid-December and, as we knew it would be busy, we requested a table in a quieter area. Interestingly we were led to a table, albeit in a quiet corner, which had been laid for six. The extra place settings were swiftly removed and this meant we had plenty of room.
The waiter announced that two things on the “menu”:https://www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com/heddon-street-kitchen/menus/ were unavailable: we cannot remember the first as we were so amazed that the second was carrots. We offered to pop out to Sainsburys, or perhaps Waitrose, but our quip didn’t raise a smile.
The “wine list”:https://www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com/heddon-street-kitchen/menus/#Sample%20Wine%20List, or should I say book, had white under various headings: light and dry, aromatic, chardonnay from around the world, rich and smooth. They started at £28 and rose to a whopping £160. We wanted a bottle of white and red, and having ordered the cheapest white from the sniffy sommelier, our friend was looking through trying to find the red section, when SS said the name of the cheapest red. Now whilst this was what we wanted, he shouldn’t have assumed.
A shared ‘snack’ of salt and pepper squid (£8) was served with lots of sliced red chillies and a cooling dip.
Two chose pork belly which at £19, only came with apple sauce. We asked what was in the side of seasonal greens to be told what the usual vegetables were. When we asked what there were today, the waitress didn’t know. The butter chicken and cashew nut curry looked good and came with rice and poppadum, whilst I think I had the best dish, a burger with triple cooked chips which was excellent. However, I had to ask for tomato sauce and there was no salt and pepper on the table.
Having just finished our mains, we were asked whether we’d like dessert. When we said, possibly, but we’d like to wait awhile, the waiters face was even grimmer than when we’d quipped about the carrots. Having been asked again by a different waiter, it became obvious they wanted the table back, so we ordered a platter of cheese, which like the squid was good for sharing. We were just on the last mouthful, when another waiter, who had been to charm school, offered coffee in the bar in return for vacating our table. We explained there had been no 2-hour slot mentioned and negotiated the coffee up to a glass of wine each – perhaps we should be in charge of Brexit negotiations.
I accept it is Christmas, busy and that there are probably a number of temporary staff employed, but there were some fundamental issues with service, and it’s highly unlikely we’d return or recommend.
