Petersham Nurseries Restaurant, Richmond — Restaurant in London

With the exception of the main dish being nice, and the ambience, everything else here is disappointing. The staff, especially the manager had a rude, and unhelpful approach to handling problems they created. A staff member in a blue jumper pushing past me loudly saying 'for god sake'while we wait to be seated. When we asked the manager to seat us in the booked tables with our larger family across closer small tables as promised, and booked and still following restaurant policy the manager told us due to covid our family had to be seated several tables away. Even though we had random strangers seated on tables all around us. This wasn't asking to be seated on the same table, just the existing same spaced tables but keeping the family together on closer tables. Clearly the manager didn't understand covid rules. The manager then told us they had no request to keep our booking of tables together, even though we had been to the restaurant before hand, called several times and also emailed. After an hour the manager realized she was wrong and said that there staff had seated the random people incorrectly and that there had been several requests and confirmations to keep everyone together, the manager said just 'sorry we are a restaurant, these things happen' and offered a free drink to say sorry. Our main meal then arrived wrong with someone being given the wrong main dish, when we asked for the right dish, again the manager came over, clearly didn't really care, just asked that we take the dish they cooked for us and said it would take to long to correct. On top of this, given this poor experience and the food menu from what was booked weeks ago hadn't changed really, the price per head has gone up by about 20 pound I believe. So for poor service, rude staff, average food, a manager who clearly has little passion to help its customers you get the pleasure of paying extra. All the other tables got there food a lot quicker than our table so had finished over an hour before we had, there tables were cleared of food. So the other tables had to sit just drinking with no food for over an hour , which for a manager who was very pro following select covid rules as she needed and wanted to, decided to look the other way and ignore this. Very confusing. Regardless, this restaurant is very much a gimmick, poor service, ok food, just happens to be in a good location. I would suggest finding...

overpriced, low level service, total waste of time and money. First and last time here, me and my wife. Exited by the green michelin star and local and home produce. Asked for a table by the window to have fresh air as was very worm day, the "maitre" seems firstly disappointed by the request and then accomodate us on a very small round coffee table with very uncomfortable hard chairs nearby the glass but not windows and not fresh air sadly. The only comment form the Manager was : "I also love to be outdoors , I have spent my whole life outdoors!" (yes, good to know but I'm about to have a meal in this premises worth minimum £65 p.p. and your staff is too lazy to set me a table under the pergola ) .... Disappointly during the meal finding out that the side tea room costumers where therefore blessed to be served under the pergola as the day was getting warmer and warmer. I then try to find my confort and think only about lovely produce written on the menu. Starters : It wasn't certainly Culatello di Zibello but not even close to a good quality Parma ham that 1 thin slice, I'm from Modena and we have a restaurant in Jersey, we serve Culatta di Parma. The burrata of average quality was cold from fridge temperature. Vanison carpaccio was good, but ridiculously small portion like 7 small thin slices with half pickled blackberry on 3 slices only. Mains : pork loin was pre cooked with an overwhelming bland in taste, with undercooked squash and other roots submerged in overly sweet pumpkin pure. Rib eye : good taste, but full of nerves and with a side of sad "roast" (soggy ) potatoes . 2 dips and boiled kale on the side all full of garlic and coriander , I like both, but too boring, Considering the cost for 1 starter and beef plate at £75 + service charge was a total rip off especially the £65 + s.c. from burrata and pork plate. The £10 non alcoholic drink was a joke, just tasting of tonic water. I'm afraid but I see this tendency in lots of restaurants were the owner is not present, mediocre but overpriced food, Mediocre service, they gave me a wet stake knife and no passion from waiters bringing the plates. No desserts , I had the stand up 2 times to get bill and then the card machine to pay over £170 before...

I know people rave about this place and It has a Michelin Green Star, however my family and I were so disappointed. It was my daughters 16th Birthday and she especially wanted to come and experience the food and ambience. For a set £90 per head for 3 course before drinks, there was no other options to have less food. The appetizers listed were so common place and uninspired. Melon with prosciutto and bruschetta with tomatoes??? My partner and I don’t eat bacon so we were given a small piece of the melon with a basil leaf instead. Three of us had the linguine with chili crab and one had the Scottish griolles on bruschetta. The crab linguine was like eating pasta swimming in lemon dish water. It was overly lemony and you couldn’t taste the crab at all. The mushrooms on toast were soggy and again nothing special.

For mains the girls fared better, one had the lamb and the other the beef which was reasonable. I had the plaice and my partner had the sea bream. Unfortunately both dishes were absolutely tasteless. I would say that I have a discerning palate and can appreciate the more subtle flavors of these two fish dishes but I’m afraid I had to basically force myself to finish the fish so that I wouldn’t waste the £30 it cost to have this dish in front of me. The potato side we ordered was overly salted so was jarring against the flavourless fish.

Two of the desserts were the only discernible dishes that were remotely passable from the menu we experienced this evening. The strawberry cheesecake and the peach frangipane tart which were nice enough but for £30 for each dessert I was expecting something special. one of my daughters ordered the tiramisu, which was a deconstructed version of the dessert and it was a hopeless effort that came with a side of very strong expresso which they didn’t explain at all. So unbeknownst to my daughter she poured most of it over the dessert and the end result was inedible. The atmosphere wasn’t that great, the staff were attentive in a slightly haughty way but I wish they would have explained the dishes a little more. All in all I will not be back and I will give an honest opinion to anyone that asks me about our visit to the restaurant, this is the worst meal I have...