RapChar — Restaurant in London

As someone who is ardently in support of independent businesses and keeping high streets and neighbourhoods vibrant and diverse, I was excited to try this restaurant, with the hope it could be somewhere I would frequent and recommend. Unfortunately, that was far from the case.

Having worked in hospitality, I always extend grace to waiting staff and consider the situation at hand and the environment they are working in. But there are some basics that are always expected, like offering guests water. At no point were we offered water before or after ordering food and drinks. Secondly, and I know that on the menu it states that if you have an allergy to left staff know, but for their own sake it’s advisable that diners be asked outright, by waiting staff, about allergies.

The service was slow but they were busy and that’s understandable. The waitress seemed inexperienced or nervous or stressed, it gets like that sometimes. When our order was finally taken, I ordered the Rags to Riches, (‘Panfried halibut, on a bed of polenta topped with cavolo nero and a light drizzling of coconut curry rundown sauce) the dish I specifically came to the restaurant for because halibut is my all time favourite fish and I love cavolo nero, I think it’s bitterly underrated and am always chuffed when it gets a bit of recognition.

When the food finally came, I was told that they didn’t have enough halibut to make a full portion so had given me two prawns ‘for free’ to make up for it. To make it sound like I’ve been done a favour when I’ve been given things I didn’t order, without consultation, is something I don’t understand. If I wanted to eat prawns I would’ve ordered them. If I had a shellfish allergy, you wouldn’t have known and it couldn’t resulted in a very dangerous situation. Additionally, the polenta had seafood in it, I couldn’t quite identify what, because it was small pieces mixed in that wasn’t mentioned on the menu. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to realise you don’t have sufficient ingredients for a dish and go back to the diner to let them know there may be alterations OR advise they choose another dish.

With my meal I had ordered a side of broccoli, however, the vegetable accompaniment to my dish was in fact broccoli and not cavolo nero as stated on the menu. I brought this up with the waitress and she went and asked the chef, returning to tell me that it’s in there, mixed up with the broccoli. This is where I can no longer extend grace and rationalise mistakes. I took apart every green thing on my dish to check among the unannounced broccoli that cavolo nero wasn’t hiding there, and there wasn’t one single piece. I then mentioned it to the senior waitress or manager who reiterated that there’s just a little bit, mixed in there and all dishes come with broccoli (why wouldn’t you put that on the menu or mention that when I ordered a side of broccoli?). She also checked with the kitchen and tripled down that there was in fact cavolo nero in my dish.

It sounds so silly and trivial but I was genuinely stunned that they were reaffirming their gaslighting of the situation. This isn’t make believe where if you say something is there three times then it appears.

As with the halibut there is the option to just be up front and say you don’t have the ingredients or there are alterations being made that evening!

The price point alludes to quality of ingredients and quality of experience and they fell short in both aspects. A lot of these things are rudimentary, how you treat customers, how you solve problems and how you take feedback (judging by previous responses to reviews, it’s not looking good)

There is promise; the menu/ideation of dishes shows creativity and passion, and many other people have had better experiences and well executed meals, so I just I really hope that they can use these reviews as learning moments to better how the business is run. None of these things cost extra money, just intentional consideration and only stand to...

Booked a table here well in advance for our daughter’s 18th family dinner. We had read good reviews and had very high hopes. From the moment we came in we faced hostile staff. Three of the five waitresses looked like they’d never worked front of house before. On ordering drinks, the waitress told us she was no help as she was ‘clueless’ about wine and preferred cocktails. This to me is bad training. If you want to run a decent restaurant, train your staff on the menus. This place is dressed up to be fine dining at the prices they are charging, so why do the staff seem like they’ve been dragged in off the street that day? When the wine arrived, it was plonked onto our table. It wasn’t opened or poured. We had to do that ourselves.

We ordered our food after about 25 minutes, too long. Within about 6 minutes our chicken wings to share arrived. We each took a bite. They weren’t hot so we sent them back. I kid you not, with in 1 minute, the wings are returned clearly having been chef mic’d (microwaved) and wait for this…the old wings we each took a bite of were returned. We were horrified. I’ve never seen that before. You send out the wings cold and return the exact same bitten out wings, wow. I hate wasting food but wings are inexpensive and we’re supposed to be fine dining! The wings here cost £14 for 4!! Craziness.

On discussion, we decided we should eat elsewhere. The prices are not for the faint hearted here and we didn’t want to risk the rest of the evening being ruined by lazy service, surly staff and bad food. We decided to leave. I went to speak to one of the FOH to cancel our remaining order. The first woman looked right through me like she didn’t understand me. Another, had no authority and when I finally got to the ‘manager’ she didn’t introduce herself as such and just said ok when I explained the situation. I said I wasn’t happy to pay but she told me I had to pay for the wine! Ok, I said and my husband went ahead and paid. As we were about to leave the head chef and owner came to ask us to stay. He apologised and offered us a meal on the house. I thanked him but explained it’s a bit late and we felt let down badly by the service and the starter.

Having read other reviews on here, I feel Raymond needs to listen to people. Get decent, friendly staff for your FoH. Train your staff. They are making your business look really bad. They are rude and lazy! I’m sure your food is good but at those prices, it should be. A good restaurant meal isn’t just about the food though. The service is elementary and freshen up plates that have...

To present the facts plainly: we arrived for our 8 pm reservation for a three-course set meal in a private area, but were not seated until 8:40 pm, and this was in the main dining room instead of the private space we had booked. Starters were only served at 9:55 pm, with the mains arriving at 10:50 pm. Desserts didn’t appear until half an hour later, despite the restaurant being advertised to close at 11 pm.

Given these numerous issues, the chef/restaurant owner was extremely apologetic and generously offered the meal on the house. Their sincerity and efforts to make amends, coupled with an understanding of the challenges within the service industry, led me to feel that further discussion or a public review was unnecessary. However, after one of our party returned to the restaurant to use the toilets they were confronted by aggressive staff members who insulted our manners, accused us of not supporting small and/or Black-owned businesses, and demanded that we return to pay for the meal, declaring that the staff would not be paid due to our actions. They also preemptively accused us of planning a negative review thus I feel compelled to summarise the problems we encountered:

Some members of the waitstaff were highly unprofessional, displaying attitudes and making several inappropriate jokes and comments. Communications from the staff were inconsistent, revealing a lack of honesty and integrity. Our table settings were incomplete compared to other tables; for a group of 14, we were initially given one cloth napkin and later provided with red paper napkins. Despite our request for a private area, we were seated in the main dining room and admonished for having a loud group. The staff failed to appreciate that our evening plans had been completely disrupted, which understandably contributed to the group's frustration.

While the starters and mains were exceptional, the service was entirely inexcusable. Having dined in many restaurants across five countries this year alone, nothing comes close to the shock of what we experienced here. I sincerely hope Chef Raymond gets the platform he deserves to showcase his culinary talents, but this establishment is in dire need of a...