Caffè Concerto Covent Garden — Restaurant in London

Certainly will not return. The service was terrible, only ground floor was open so it was not "busy" as an excuse. Ordered 2 virgin mocktails and 2 dessert items. Waited so long for 2 simple items and and drinks. Very disappointed, the presentation/ arrival of my dessert was literally various scoops of raggedy spooned icecream thrown on the plate over a tart with custard. They were not scooped to present on a dessert at all or placed to the side carefully so they would not melt instantly if placed on top of hot custard. I simply could not post the pics on my insta as it was so bad. The strawberry garnish cut like strawberry was laying on its side? Thrown on plate or like plate had been dropped during service.. .it was swimming in melted custard/ heavily melted icecream mix. No spoon!!... Was expected to eat a melted icecream/ custard mess with with a fork. My partner only had a knife so he had wait for a waiter to come to then ask him for a spoon or fork taking yet more time and icecream what was left still unmelted....melting. We finished the dessert waiting with still no drinks served. The mocktails we ordered eventually arrived...they were not great. In fact mine was DISGUSTING and UNDRINKABLE!!! It was the Virgin blue Hawaiian. My partners mocktail was basically completly tasteless = fizzy soda water on ice with a leaf of mint ... literally no other attempt to make it a "virgin mojito" 0 taste of anything. I never had a Mocktail SO BAD that I had to leave completely UNDRUNK. Paid the very overpriced bill reluctantly simply to get out of the place quickly. The service charge was cheekily already included!!? The chocolate fondant my partner had was just ok, heavily ket down by my not enjoying anything at all. The service charge should be optional meaning waiters try harder to give good standard of service. Believe me I appreciate service and always tip waiters extremely more than expected. I was shocked by Cafe Concerto. I certainly would not have tipped any where near what you charged me for. For the horrendous dining experience spent there. Came in to be warm and cosy but was cold sat at back corner by a very draughty door. A very very disappointing experience and would not...

Management let down! I visited the Covent Garden branch as a party of 6 on 11/03 at 10pm, on arrival we were greeted by a gentleman in a light blue suit believed to be the manager as all other staff were dressed in unison like a uniform. We were seated quickly on a small round table tightly packed together as we suggested we only wanted dessert. After a few minutes we were approached by a waitress who offered to take drinks order; 4 teas a coke and glass of water after 5mins the 4 teas and coke were received, followed by 4 tea cups but no water and the waitress was nowhere to be seen. Waiting a few more minutes thinking it must be coming a waiter (Vikas) passed by we called him over mentioning we hadn’t received the water. Vikas apologised and went to get the glass of water, on his return another member of the party asked if we could order dessert as the waitress still had not returned. Slightly hesitant Vikas asked what we would like to order after a few requests were made and declined as out of stock due to the time and near closing Vikas offered to check what items were still available to order, at this point we felt that Vikas had been very helpful friendly and welcoming especially as the waitress still hadn’t appeared. After taking our order Vikas stepped a few feet away from the table and was approached by the gentleman in the light blue suit supposedly the manager and was questioned why he took the order? he has been told not to this. The manager noticed I saw the entire conversation as it was in my direct eye-line, this did not deter the manager he then repeated to Vikas he is not to take orders. I felt extremely uncomfortable and embarrassed to witness this behaviour of the manager from such a refined venue. Dear Manager, please remember all members of staff deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, if you can’t do that I suggest management training is required. Please note during the entire experience the waitress only appeared after asking 2 different people for the bill one being the man in the light blue suit. The cakes were delicious but the crepes were disappointing took longer than expected and were...

So the cakes here are great but it's important to note thay they're ordered in and they're the exact same in every single branch. Not sure on the rest of the food, though. The service here was really what my 2 star score is about. The place is fairly big but it was pretty quiet (about 1/4 of tables with customers) and plenty of staff, yet the service was incredibly slow and lacked attention to detail.

We were sat next to a station, where the lady who looked like part of management stood to take our order (for some reasons she didn't want to stand at our table). I wouldn't have been that bothered by this but it was more the 'not bothered' attitude and the fact she got our order wrong after mishearing me. Perhaps it would've been better to actually stand at our table instead of standing behind me as I ordered? Another staff did however correct the mistake once we mentioned without any fuss.

When we asked for our bill, I felt so bad for the guy as he seemed super busy with a mental list of so many things to do. He was on this station behind me, I understand if he was having troubles or had things to do, but it wasn't great to see so many staff standing around and not helping him at all. He has to call across to someone for help at one point but no one had paid attention. He did apologise for the wait for our bill and the wait to pay.

Despite this, what quite spoilt the outing was the lack of privacy we had at our table. Being sat right next to that station I felt someone always there either overhearing our conversation or hearing the staff talking loudly being distracting. Again, it wasn't busy at all so I'm not sure if you must have a table next to that station why you would sit someone there when there's other tables available?

If you want to try Caffè Concerto I would advise giving this branch a miss. Although the interior is pretty nice in here and it's quite spacious so I suppose if the things I mentioned wouldn't bother you then you might like...