Elvet Steakhouse London — Restaurant in London

GRAB A SNACK THIS IS LONG! I visited Elvet for a Birthday celebration. I will start with the positive's. The food was absolutely delicious! What my friends and I could not finish we wrapped up and took home in containers kindly provided by the restaurant. The portions were very generous and the presentation beautiful we were all very much impressed. The atmosphere was loud and thriving. The decorations are picturesque. Every inch of the restaurant was extremely clean including the toilets (I normally dread public toilets). However...THE SERVICE was absolutely APPALLING. I can not stress this enough! The service really let the place down and was why I had to think really hard about the star rating. First off we ordered drinks and starters. The menu that is downloaded to your phone through a QR code (which I thought was pretty cool and very modern) clearly labels some drinks as NON ALCOHOLIC while the others didn't have that label. To be fair the drinks menu was labelled "Dry Bar" but if you are not used to this term, which our table wasn't it can seem very confusing. We asked our waiter to clear this up and he responded with a "hmmm we don't usually serve alcohol but let me check" then when he came back and confirmed all the drinks were NON ALCOHOLIC he said "don't worry lots of customers get confused and change their order due to that fact, I'm used to it, I get it ALL THE TIME" which perplexed us. We were left wondering wherever he regularly worked there or not because one minute he was confused about what they serve the next he is saying this is a common mistake. Anyway no big deal we all switched to colas and lemonades instead £7 juices that we initially thought were alcoholic cocktails as the menu says gin. The starters took foreveeeeeeeer to arrive. All the while other tables were getting served very quickly. The starters were lovely but half the table had eaten their starter whereas half were still waiting on their first drink! Incredibly slow. The mains were even worse (not the taste, the taste was magnificent) again the service was atrocious! We started to think our waiter had something against our table as everyone else in the place was getting served so quickly. Same problem with half the table eating their mains, half hadn't arrived, lots of errors were made with the wrong order entirely ending up at the table and still a few guests waiting on their very FIRST DRINK! Chips arrived without steak, steak arrived not as ordered, goes back to the kitchen...chips now cold correct steak then arrives...eurgh it was very frustrating to watch! HOWEVER SILVER LINING a lovely waitress by the name of MONTANNA saved the evening with her lovely personality, enthusiasm, relatable personality and eagerness to help out with our whole table. Montanna you are a star! Hope you get that promotion you were striving for girl. We all dreaded the bill as we didn't want to pay a service charge unless it was going to the above named waitress. The manager talked, discounted and negotiated a lower price on our bill that we were almost happy with, although some friends didn't even eat we just paid it because we wanted to be done with the night. We were informed near the end of the night the waiter manning our table of 15-20 guests was actually a 'bus boy' he normally only cleans table (no shade, nothing wrong with that) but WHY ON EARTH would you put an amateur on a BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION TABLE SO BIG? I found that highly insulting and so did the birthday girls. I certainly wouldn't return here, the food was great but the poor service left a "sour" taste...

The first time i went there i felt it was very instagrammable, this was before it had become so popular on social media. Food presented like it's from Masterchef lol with all the theatrics. My Pretty in pink mojito had an aromatic bubble that burst into smoke, it has loads of flavour too, and the Cheesecake was also grandly presented with smoke upon arrival. It's quite expensive however the food was really good, the chicken steak was super soft and tasted almost like tikka, with a layer of cheese on top, best chicken steak i ever tasted. However my partner was not convinced that his wagyu sirloin was worth £55, he said it tasted like regular steak and nothing special. The flavour of the cheesecake was spot on but the texture was too thick and the biscuit crumb was too thin and on the soft side. Music was also way too loud and the tables were too closely packed together which made it uncomfortable. Overall though I found it to be a great place to eat and I enjoyed it.

2nd visit wasn't as positive unfortunately although service was immaculate. The music was more toned down so I was pleased that I could talk to my friend and hear her without having to shout, and the seats were also more spaced out. It seems they do take on feedback which is always good to see. I ordered a chicken thigh steak which turned out to be a major disappointment. Didn't quite seem cooked enough, some parts seemed rubbery and it was completely bland, no seasoning. It was supposed to be covered in a honey drizzle but I couldn't taste any of that. I even enjoyed my salad in the parmesan bowl more than the chicken lol. I went from having the best chicken steak I had in the first visit to the worst chicken steak I've ever had. For starters we had the prawn tempura, the batter was nice and crispy but the prawns were quite hard which made it less enjoyable. The guacamole was okay but again lacked enough flavour. I ordered 2 sides, mac and chic croquettes which was heavily disappointing, couldn't taste the chicken or cheese at all, only the macaroni pasta, bland again. The other side was the sweet potato fries and I was relieved that they were really tasty, lots of flavour, soft on the inside, crispy on the outside, could've chomped on a whole bowl of those lol. I had the Golddigger mojito which looked suuuuper pretty, and whilst the flavour was nice it seemed to be watered down, a stark difference to the mojito Pretty in Pink i had the first time i visited. My friend on the other hand enjoyed her passion fruit mojito and thought the lamb shank was great, it was soft and apparently tasted like her mothers cooking so thats a huge compliment. I ordered the flowerpot tiramisu with mascarpone cheese and cookie crumble dessert, enough for 2 people, and was glad to find it was honestly so good, definitely recommend this dessert. The waiters were great, very attentive and friendly. It's a shame that my meal aside from the sweet potato fries and dessert was painstakingly bland. Due to this my rating has dropped to a 3. At the end of the day, it's an expensive place, yes the aesthetics are great and the service was top, but food is the star of the show and being the price that it is, it has to match up. FYI - My friend would probably rate this a 4 as she...

AVOID Absolutely disappointed. Been here several times before but partner hadn’t been so made a reservation for his birthday. We were a group of five and they took us to a table for four, bear in mind they had booths with groups of three and we had MADE A RESERVATION. We were put on a table right in front of the door, so each time someone was leaving they would hold the door open and we’d keep getting a draft. My partner got the bartender special a £14.99 drink, they come out do a whole show of it tell you to record etc etc. Within seconds the glass knocked against another and smashed drink all over the table on phones bags, they bring over a wet cloth to clean it up. The tables still sticky it smells, they staff realise oh we need blue roll to soak it up. They come go come go, sorted but still sticky. Some May disagree, but a £14.99 drink WAS NOT REPLACED! When you are paying that much, out of courtesy the least they could do but no. We ordered almost all the starters and mains, but one less as I was going for the salad. The waiter noticed and asked why we hadn’t ordered a main as that’s a requirement for everyone to order mains (BAFFLING) I said we’ve ordered a lot of mains. (He checked with the “manager” who stood next to our table majority of the evening, not once greeted smiled checked we were ok nothing) Starters come (they were sent back because the staff couldn’t clear the stickiness from the table 🫣 Lambs in blanket were the best thing on that order. We got here before 19:30, it was 21:10 and we were still waiting on our mains. We were being patient as thought ok it’s a Friday night it’s busy, but to make us wait over an hour for the mains was appalling. It was only when one of the waiters who had reset the table noticed that we were still waiting when they started to go check with kitchen. Even then he said it should be on its way soon. 21:25 a main comes. Bear in mind Mr Manager is still just stood around by the bar area and STILL doesn’t have the courtesy to smile nor check/apologise for the ridiculous delay. The chicken FILLET steak comes with a huge bone in it, my partner chose fillet because of there being no bone. Lo and behold the waiters response was That’s how we do it here, chicken steaks are on the bone. Chicken FILLET steaks? I may not be Gordon Ramsay but fillets are BONELESS! The lamb was so raw and bloody it just made it taste flavourless. Chicken burger was ok and the Greek salad was probably the best thing we ordered. Throughout constantly pestered is your glass empty is your plate done is your glass empty was beyond irritating! The waiter who originally took our order asked how’s everything going, my partner said never again. It was the worst experience we have ever had. This place gives off a boujee vibe, the same three songs were on repeat with a couple of birthday songs for customers celebrating their birthdays. I should have gone with my gut feeling and left as soon as we got there. But it was my partners birthday, fortunately we will not be going back here again. Mr Manager when you read this I suggest you go on a customer service course, a successful manager leads effectively. I’d rather have...