Miller & Carter Bexley — Restaurant in London

SUMMARY: RUDE, LAZY, INDIFFERENT STAFF REFUSED TO PUSH 2 TABLES TOGETHER FOR A GROUP OF 10 (OR SEAT US AT TWO TABLES NEXT TO EACH OTHER)

My sister booked a table on Sat, Feb 4 at 15:30 for 10 people, but in two separate reservations, for 4 and 6 people. She tried calling the restaurant to merge these reservations into one and have the tables pushed together - the restaurant said that they will do their best, but refused to provide any reasons or guarantees that this will be possible.

The night before, at around 7pm, I came to the restaurant with my cousin to confirm whether they would be able to push the tables for us - or definitively tell us that they will not be able to accommodate us. The man at the reception said "we will do our best". I replied, "well, you see, this is why we came here today, it's important for our group to sit together, so can you please explain what the obstacles are in doing so". The man (didn’t get his name, tall with a short beard) replied "I am sorry, but it’s a Friday night, we are very busy, so NO, I will NOT go into the details of why, like I already said, we will do our best". The only people at the reception desk other than us was a young couple that had just entered the restaurant and did not look as if they were in a hurry or in any way bothered by two well dressed grown men (myself and my cousin) politely talking to the receptionist. Yet for some reason, the receptionist deemed it to be adequate to rudely cut us off without any further explanation. This was an absolutely unacceptable, rude response, and should have been a sign (first red flag) that we should cancel our reservation at this terrible establishment and go elsewhere.

Against our better judgement, we decided not to cancel the booking, and give this place a try, arriving at the restaurant the following day at 15:30 for our birthday lunch.

The man at the reception (a different person from the one the night before) welcomed us and told one of the waitresses that her group had arrived. She looked at us, and then – I kid you not – rolled her eyes at us, after which she, very begrudgingly, asked us to follow her (second red flag). We then walked to our two tables in the right wing of the restaurant. One of the tables was near the bar and a big glass window, and the other was in a booth adjacent to the same outer wall - so the two groups would effectively be sitting separately.

When we asked the staff if there was anything they could do to seat us together, they refused to even make the slightest effort to accommodate us. The restaurant was half empty and there were plenty of free areas. For example: there was a whole section on the mezzanine that was closed off (the waiter said that they did not have enough guests to open it and seat us there) the left wing of the restaurant was for for walk-in guests had free tables there that the staff could push together for our group (or not – as long as we had two tables next to each other) - however, the staff refused to seat us there too

I do not want to make baseless accusations, but our group was Eastern European, while most of the restaurant staff and guests were British and white. I sincerely hope that race had nothing to do with the way our group was treated, however, it did make me wonder whether we would be treated better and with more respect, had we also been British and white. As I write this, I really hope I am wrong and the reason for how poorly we were treated was general incompetence and lack of motivation of the staff (underpaid? overworked?), rather than outright racism. Unfortunately, it felt more like the latter due to the sheer stubbornness with which the staff refused to accommodate us. It was almost as if they intentionally tried to make us understand that our kind is not welcome there - without actually saying it.

My little 3 yo niece was crying as we were leaving the restaurant (which she quite liked), too young to understand how disrespected and mistreated our group was and why we had to leave.

Avoid this establishment...

Had quite an unfortunate experience here which is a shame and has put me and family off returning. We came on a Sunday evening as a table of 6 (3 couples) my dad had a voucher for 2 cocktails for 14, which he checked with the waiter before ordering who more than triple checked the voucher didn't have any t&cs (it didn't) eventually we got to ordering the drinks, my sister had a mocktail which essentially was pineapple juice with soda water, (it wasn't good) and asked if she could change it as she didn't like it, the waiter said not a problem and took the drink away, after doing this came back and informed that unfortunately having spoken to her manager she would need to pay for a new drink, not a problem but also, the previous drink had been taken away so that felt a little cheeky. The waiter also explained that as it was a mocktail it was a kids drink, which felt quite rude to describe the drink which was clearly under the mocktail section of the cocktails as a drink for children rather than for those who don't want to have alcohol in their drink for whatever reason (personal choice, medical, designated driver, religion etc) Then whilst we were eating our starter the manager came over and asked to look at the cocktail voucher again (we were mid conversation whilst eating our starters) with no apology for interrupting just simply didn't believe the voucher (despite it being a legit Miller and carter voucher via their app) and then took the phone with the voucher to the side, and eventually conceded And returned the phone and said fine they would honour the voucher - in a not impressed kind of tone. Food wise the starters and mains we had were all good, no real issues with quality or taste with any of them. The burrata did say it came with charred beetroot, but it was just standard beetroot, the wedges do come out a fair chunk of time before the steaks, but nothing major to complain about. Then we ordered dessert, and most of us ordered the sticky toffee pudding, and it was Luke warm at best. My dad then informed the waiter that jt was cold, and to check this she just stuck her finger in it and went oh yeah it is. And then we had to ask for them to be changed. 2 of us did just eat them cold as it was late by this point. But it felt like a really weird interaction to confirm we weren't lying. It felt like we were more of a hindrance than customers in all honesty. Having previously had good experiences years ago ( let's say about 10 years ago since last visit) this was really disappointing as this had been booked as a special occasion last meal before our upcoming wedding as run through of the event. Sadly from this experience I wouldn't recommend this restaurant and would actively recommend other steak...

What can I say. Nothing short of a disaster. Booked a table of 4 for 5pm and although it took some time to get our drinks order taken we eventually received these drinks 45 minutes later after chasing them twice with a different waitress and also a ‘manager’. I will say our waitress was fantastic but was clearly overloaded with tables.

The starters arrived a little over an hour into the service, which all tasted good. Sticky chipotle chicken and burrata was lovely.

Between starters and main we only had 1 lettuce wedge arrive, which was swimming in water. Clearly hadn’t been dried after its wash. I showed this to the manager and there was a distinct lack of interest. She also seemed less bothered that we were now 2 hours into our service and still hadn’t received our main meals. We found out a new girl was expediting but didn’t have control of the kitchen hence why food was taking so long to come out.

Started discussing walking out but the kind waitress came over and apologised and told us our food was nearly there. After a short while the food arrived. Still no sign of the other lettuce wedge, probably started to wilt. I had the filet steak mignon, one was lovely the other clearly didn’t want to get off the grill. Our chips didn’t arrive so alternative chips were provided for the delay, eventually getting a portion of fries arrive. Being told they were fresh out the fryer…quick guess…they weren’t. Regardless of all that the rest of the food was ok.

Spoke to the manager at the end and she was so uninterested I may as well have spoken to the wall. Whereas the waitress (I apologise as I didn’t get her name) was hugely apologetic and wished me, my wife and 2 very tired kids a nice evening.

Wasnt what I had in mind when we were celebrating me starting a new job. Our second time here with poor service kind of tells you how this place is being ran. Hugely...