Aviary — Restaurant in London

After looking forward to this for ages I had this evening booked weeks in advance as a special dinner for my husband's 30th birthday.

We were welcomed and seated in a lovely, heated igloo with an amazing rooftop view which, unfortunately, was the only good part about the whole evening.

We selected dishes that were on the "Today's special menu", only to be told by our server that this is no longer available (which is fine but probably should've been mentioned to us prior to us taking the time to decide our dishes) and to choose something else from the regular menu. The comment made by the server after this is what put us off immediately: he said "This is why you shouldn't be late for your booking". Not that it should really matter, but for context, our booking was for 8:45 and we arrived at around 09:05.

My husband's order for the Main course was the "Roast cornfed chicken breast, truffle and Parmesan terrine, shiitake mushrooms, chicken jus". The dish that came over to the table was NOT in fact breast and was actually a bone-in piece with a chicken wing. My husband is very particular about eating only boneless chicken and hence was completely put off by the wing on his plate. When I pointed this out to our server, he said "The menu definitely didn't say chicken breast on it" and laughed it off. We were of course both very sure that it said breast, so I went back to the menu and pointed this out to the server. He immediately got defensive and we were met with snarky and ridiculous comments. He continues to comment "The menu says 'cornfed' which actually means it is breast and wing bone". He then pulls out his phone and says "Let me Google the word and show you that 'cornfed' means bone". At this point, we're both obviously quite frustrated with the whole experience. Once the server realised his mistake, he continues to say "Oh, you're right, it's supposed to be breast only. Thanks for letting me know - I'll give your feedback to the chef." Neither did he apologise, nor did he make an attempt to rectify the situation.

What was supposed to be a special birthday meal at a "top restaurant in the city" was turning out to be a nightmarish experience for my husband and me.

As a special request for the booking, I was promised a birthday dessert plate for our booking - unsurprisingly NEVER arrived. Honestly, at this point, I was too exhausted and frustrated to continue spending another minute at Aviary. We proceeded to pay off the FULL bill and left with nothing close to the experience I expected.

I cannot emphasise enough how disappointing (and to some extent felt very discriminatory!) this experience was.

As courtesy, I also emailed them directly detailing out our experience before writing this review. After following up again it’s been 2 weeks and still no response yet....

We have always been big fans of the ETM brand for many years, and have been regulars at The Aviary. We felt that our last few recent visits hadn't been to the standard we expected, but after our weekend visit, they are definitely back on track.

We stayed over at the Mont Calm, and had breakfast in The Aviary. 100% the best breakfast we have had there, both in customer service delivery and the quality of the food. We ordered from the A La Carte rather than the buffet and it was superb. Having said that, we did dip into the buffet to have meats, cheeses, fruits and salmon, and it was clear the food was great quality. The new breakfast Manager, Maria, is very hands on and demonstrated her excessive knowledge in the Industry....a very welcomed addition to the team.

As it was an unexpected glorious day we decided to stay the day. We negotiated one of the new pods and spent the day drinking cocktails served by Louis. He made me one of his own takes on a rum punch, deliciously garnished with nutmeg, which we named "meet me in St Louis".

The pods and the ambience of the rooftop is a winner, certainly the best they have had to date.....it really does feel christmasy and Laplandesque - clearly a lot of investment has been released to get to this standard.

We stayed for a late lunch and had the lamb and the cod from the A La Carte menu. Superbly cooked and once again the quality of the meat and fish was clear. I get the impression who ever is responsible for F&B is sourcing top notch supplies reflected on what is delivered on the plate. Thank you to Florin, Head Chef, for the great food and also your time to speak with us.

As ever a big shout out to Robert (Papi) & Dwayne who looked after us on the Saturday night. Also a big thanks to the Manager, Justina. She works extremely hard, is very engaging and clearly cares passionately about service delivery and the ETM brand.....another good find by ETM resourcing.

Based on this visit, and based on the current Team, who after all make the experience, we will be booking for a winters night in one of the pods.

Well done ETM for getting back to where we know...

Let’s start with the good points as there were only a few. The view on the terrace is incredible at night. The igloos are a brilliant idea and was a great temperature. The drinks were good too. That was the good, here comes the bad/ The service was absolutely shocking. Our first waitress Petra started writing down our orders and then told us we could not order from the A la Carte menu and only the set menu, even though we had made prior arrangements. She then went to get her so called manager. He walked in and had an attitude, we advised him we would prefer to order from the main menu and had made prior arrangements, he said it was not possible to do so and then said he would ask the chefs. He then walked back with the main menus. To our surprise the menus they have online are completely different to the ones in the restaurant. The manger said the menu is around 6 months old. I don’t know about you, but when I go to book a restaurant the first thing I check is the menu? The manager then reluctantly took our orders with a smug look and definitely has a big attitude problem. When it was time for dessert our waitress came back and said the kitchen is closing in 15 minutes so it’s last orders for desserts. We ordered 4 desserts and then were told we had to go inside as they were shutting the terrace. We took a picture and as we walked we were informed that the kitchen is now closed and they won’t be doing our desserts, however we were told we were free to go somewhere else for our desserts. Instead we decided to have a drink inside to celebrate our friend’s birthday and toast them. We then asked for the bill and all 4 desserts were still charged. Considering they had made the mistake of offering us dessert in the first place, they could have done a round of drinks on the house.

If I’m honest the lack of attention to detail, the horrific customer service and the mediocre quality of food makes this a very easy decision to not...