Raphael Restaurant — Restaurant in Bath

If we were to rate our experience out of 6 for: service, wine, starter, main, dessert and music/ambience, it would get a 2/6 based on the mains (lamp rump and beef fillet) and pigeon starter.

The service oscillated between pushy hovering and non-existant. At least 3 members of staff were pecking around us from the second we were seated for a wine order. In the end, merely to make it stop, we allowed them to make a suggestion based on our description of preferred wines. What we purchased was nothing like we described and was a £43 bottle of tannins, acid and heartburn. We made a note of the wine merely to ensure that we never drink it again. After we had ordered the wine we then waited a fair while before anyone returned to take our food order. The same happened once we requested the bill, to the point where we joked it would be quicker to leave, wait for them to call us and pay over the phone.

The ambience asthetically is very nice, musically - I'm not one to eat my dinner to Tina Turner. We found the music choice questionable at best.

As starters, my husband ordered scallops and I pigeon. The pigeon was lovely but the scallops were tasteless and under-seasoned. There were also only 2 scallops and I don't feel it unreasonable to generally expect 3.

The one saving factor was their lamb main with celeriac dauphinoise which was delicious. My husband's beef fillet was a little under-seasoned but okay overall.

The desserts, well, we shouldn't have bothered. When a menu states profiteroles, traditionally, you expect more than the 1 my husband was served with a scoop of ice cream. I ordered the poached pear and, again, expected a whole poached pear, not 3 slices. I also expected soft, homemade meringue not 3 tiny domes of what I assume were shop purchased hard meringues.

We booked Raphael's as a celebratory, romantic final night in Bath meal due to their seemingly good reviews on Tripadvisor. Sadly, our experience did not match expectations and we shall not...

(Avoid this restaurant, they are selective on who they serve)

We were excited to visit this restaurant as recommended by friends who had mentioned the dessert they had was fantastic when visiting.

We had dinner elsewhere, equally as nice, but wanted to try the dessert.

We went inside and waiting a solid 2 minutes to be greeted, they did see us at the door I might add and when we were greeted it honestly did not feel genuine. Also whilst we were waiting we had a lot of unwelcoming looks from the patrons. We were in normal clothing attire, nothing ‘fancy’ so nothing to stare at.

We asked if we could have dessert and drinks as it was towards the end of the evening (approximately 8.30pm) and was met with a clear, no madam thats not possible, (he told us twice rudely whilst smiling) along with some other mumbling.

More than half the restaurant was empty, there were lots of seats, a part from the obvious observation that we were people of colour and everyone else in the restaurant including the server was caucasian. This speaks volumes and the gut feeling I had of low key racism as soon as I walked in.

We turned around and walked out feeling extremely disappointed.

Its a restaurant serving food, we want the food and were happy to pay, there was plenty of seating - simple right?!

You are a little restaurant in a little city, think twice before ‘selecting’ who you want to serve.

We will not be recommending you to anyone. Atmosphere is equally as...

An incredible dining experience.

Raphael’s is certainly one of the best restaurnants I have been to in Bath. The atmosphere is homey, surrounded by their impressive stock of wine bottles. Service was excellent throughout.

To start I had the French Onion Soup. It was unique in that it wasn’t brown/ sticky with pieces of well cooked onion (traditional French onion soup) but more of a white emulsion of onion. This ended up making the dish refreshingly light. Perfect for a starter. I do take issue with the limited amount of stuffed cheese “breadballs?”. This was meant to be the source of the cheese flavour, but because there was little of it, the dish lacked the saltiness it needs during some slurps.

Duck three ways for main course. It was first class. Duck hash brown, duck croquette and duck breast. My favourite part was the duck breast with the parsnip purée. The sweetness of the Millard combined with the earthiness of the parsnips tasted magical. The gravy was rich and complimented the flesh with its herbs and salt profile.

Ordered a side of mash, which was beautifully whipped and tasted perfect.

The only other circumstance is that despite it being a wine bar, I would have expected more than one...