Côte Royal Festival Hall — Restaurant in London

My friend and I ordered the same dish seabass it came with 2 tiny pieces of broccoli (tenderstem) and some small new potatoes and white sauce . The fish was lovely and HOT " as it should be " BUT the white sauce and potatoes and broccali was LUKE warm 🤢 How dificult can it be to ensure the timing of preparing the food is equally hot. It is obvious that they must of dished out the potatoes and broccali on to the plate whilst waiting on the fish to finish which means the food on the plate will slowl but surely cool down as time pases .

Ordinarily i would of asked to have my food reheated, but as we was in a hurry I didnt want to make my friend having to wait for me to finish eating. Each potato i bit in to was the same luke warm tempreture, I bit in to the last one half of it was cold , that tells me the potatoes must of been reheated from being stored cold in the fridge. It is nothing worse eating cool food and the taste it leaves in the mouth made me feel sick afterwards. I cannot stand cold food it is not nice, and secondly I wouldnt expect this from a restaurant when paying money when i can cook better myself

Secondly. I ordered a tart. When the waiter put the plate down I looked at at the plate which had crumbs on it ,it looked dirty and not how you would present food to paying customers

I called the waiter over to ask if this plate is clean. He replied yes . it is just some crumbs splattered from the pastry tart...

( you would of thought that, at least to make sure the tart was placed on the plate without odd bits of crumbs around the plate because the tart was NOT a crumbly pastry .) This is sloppiness.

Whilst I told the waiter and pointing to the crumbs on theplate, he was telling its just crubs from the pastry but he was also using his hand gesture whilst saying this hovering his hand by a couple of inches over my plate. 😏 I had to tell him dont wave your hand over my food I have to eat this.

It was not a nice experience considering I was hungry. Better ettiquet would be a start and more professionalism would...

A pretty mediocre restaurant that gets away with it because of their location.

Walked into the restaurant and greeted by the manager, Emilian. He showed us to a table in the middle of the front of the restaurant, I proceeded to request if we could sit at a side table away from the middle. He proceeds to show us to the table next to the first, in the middle of the restaurant. I asked again if I could move to a table on the side, so we moved over again to another table just off the middle. After visiting the bathroom, I learned that there was additional seating at a lower part of the restaurant with nice booths, so I asked another waiter, Sam, if we could sit over there and he said of course.

Throughout the rest of the night the manager ignored us and acted like we did something just to get on his nerves, when really I just wanted to sit in a different part of the restaurant for my own comfort. I recall him checking on everyone’s tables except ours.

The manager, Emilian, was visibly stressed and moody throughout the night. He was seen rubbing shoulders with colleagues and seemingly being frustrated. Never have I ever come across a manager who had been so visibly rude and disrespectful to the customer (us) before.

Other than that the food was mediocre/bad which is disappointing because we are regulars. I suspect that the standards are not as high as the restaurant fills up from the nearby theatres every night. The steak was cooked on a dirty grill and had a strong charcoal flavour. The French onion soup had no flavour, and very watery. The scallops were good and the fish pie was a good pick too.

One silver lining was that our main waiter for the night, Sam, was pretty decent and for the most part and had a good attitude/service.

Honestly was a poor experience from a cote restaurant, really need to step it up or start to lose...

Avoid the Cote restaurant at The Royal Festival Hall at all costs unless you want to be insulted. I am extremely disappointed that customers pay for a service, and the service providers charge you to insult you. We booked a table for 14 guests for the 29th of October at around 11 am. This is part of our regular sketch group meetup where we sketch and have breakfast/brunch. We have been here several times; however, this is the first time I've seen this highly rude waitress wearing a red top. She started telling members of my group to move out of the way and then gave me a horrid look, saying, "What is your problem?" when nobody actually had a problem. Is this the customer service standard at Cote? Instead of the expected etiquette and manners, which include phrases like "excuse me," "sorry," "please," and "thank you," this waitress gives the customer attitude instead. There were some rude moaning guests behind us who did not seem to like our group for some reason. Instead of maybe moving them to another part of the restaurant, the waitress started shouting at members of my group. English is not the first language for some of the members in my group, so they were very confused and unable to respond. This waitress took advantage of this. How dare any business behave this way with paying customers? I am actually appalled and not happy about the fact that the restaurant benefitted from a large payment from our group and misbehaved with us. I complained to the manager on our way out, and instead of saying he will resolve the matter, he tried to justify her behavior. There is NO excuse whatsoever for staff to be rude, particularly to my group, who are very calm, polite, and positive people. This results in poor management. WE WILL NEVER BE...