Six

So we dined at your restaurant last night (table of 8) and I was absolutely underwhelmed and even quite angry by the time we left. But I'll start with the positives.

We had a friendly greeting on arrival at just gone 20:30pm by your doorman. Your staff in the restaurant also seemed warm and welcoming as we were shown to our table. When our cocktails finally arrived, they were fantastic. My partner's steak was lovely and the rest of our meals were okay (although the pizza was rather chewy).

Aside from the above, unfortunately:

We booked well in advance and got shoved on a table which had the view of the kitchen tea pot collection as opposed to the panoramic views of Cambridge the restaurant offered. Also a poor choice as you knew on booking this was a special occasion, 30th birthday.

This fits with the fact you did not acknowledge it was my partner's 30th birthday AT ALL. Not a verbal mention, a free drink, a token dessert. Very poor.

We waited for over an hour for our food with no communication or apology and my partner's steak came last after a considerable delay. Given it was his evening and one of the quickest meals, I was left baffled.

We paid an £80 deposit for the table which you originally failed to deduct from the bill. There was very little apology when this was addressed with your waiter who just said "my fault" as he put the bill down with a penned ammendment in front of me. Again, no token gesture such as a free drink to make up for this poor service.

I was told no balloons or decorations in the restaurant so was very confused to find on arrival that the table behind us had a 30th balloon. You simply CANNOT write an email that says "no table decorations to garauntee the consistency of dining experience for all our customers" and then not enforce that consistency. A bridal party who arrived as we left also had decorations. I actually felt quite discriminated against at this point.

Overall, a bitterly disappointing experience for a restaurant with such a strong reputation.

I look forward to receiving...

We were taken by our friends to Six to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary, which was very generous of them. Our starters were scallops, whitebait, soup, and all were lovely.

Our main courses were Sunday roast beef, which my hubby picked, and he thoroughly enjoyed. I had the ribeye steak, and though not cooked as I had ordered medium to well done, it was tastey , French fries were disappointing, would have preferred proper chips, especially at the price that they charge. I ordered a pepper steak sauce, which was lovely and peppery, with not too much cream, just the way I liked it. Our friends selected the Tomahawk steak and ordered to be cooked to medium. I have added a picture, and you can see again that it is rarer than medium. The chef seems to just ignore the customers' choice and cook how they feel it should be eaten. With the steak, they ordered ROCKET & PARMESAN SALAD and a blue cheese sauce each. Only one was served, and it wasn't blue cheese. The waitress was so apologetic and got it sorted. However, the disappointment came when they tried to cut into the Tomahawk steak it wasn't tender at all. It was a terrible standard of steak. It was tough, not very tasty. It was also not very warm. They struggled through, but when they came to about 1/3rd through the couldn't eat much more, they asked for a couple of pieces to be cooked to a medium and they did this bit it didn't improve and they left it.

When the waitress asked if everything was OK, we let her know about the Tomahawk meal. They offered us free desserts but we didn't want them. So they actually offered our wine free. The person who redeemed our faith in the restaurant was the bar manager, from Portugal, whose name i can't remember. He came over and apologised and chatted. The waitress was lovely also and dealt with our complaints in a very professional manner. Would I go back, yeah, probably, and I would just not...

Just got home from a really disappointing experience having afternoon tea at Six. the service was very poor from the start: the waitress was 'sour' and unfriendly when taking the order - so much so that it was commented on by a few people (between us, not to her!), and from that point on our table was basically ignored for the remaining 2 hours we were there. We were out celebrating a work event and would happily have ordered additional hot drinks and cocktails (especially as the tea was lukewarm by the time the food arrived) but we were given no opportunity to order more. If the restaurant was busy I would have understood, but it was virtually empty when we left and made no sense why we were left for close to an hour clearly finished with empty glasses.

Service could probably have been excused if the food was good, but sadly it was sub-par... The scones were hard and dense, the lemon meringue base was soft and claggy instead of light and crisp and the sandwiches pretty bland and tasteless (the coronation chicken was the exception). There were lots of leftovers which reflected the quality. It was just dull and unimaginative which given the price just came across as they are just relying on the location and views to justify the price.

What was also puzzling, is that one of our guests couldn't make it, and so we asked if we could take one afternoon tea to go. Why this was brought out at the with the rest of our meal and left to sit in the hot sun made no sense at all. It's just common sense that it should probably be kept in the fridge as we would be there for at least another 1 to 1.5 hours at this point, especially as there were egg sandwiches and cream to spoil. Just not good service.

We were all very disappointed and next time will definitely go back to the Ivy where both the food and service were...