ROKA Mayfair — Restaurant in London

Definitely is not a fine dining restaurant. We turned up to our reservation about 20 mins early and the staff were not happy about this at all. At most fine dining restaurants, if you turn up early; you are given the chance to either wait at the bar or go straight to the table. They made us wait outside. We were seated at the table right next to the toilet entrance and we were not happy about this. When we finally sat down, we decided on the basic tasting menu because we were told a minimum of 2 people must order it in order for us to receive it and we also had only 2 hours at the table. Not a great start being told to wait outside and being told all these conditions we must abide by, clearly not accommodating or hospitable staff.

There was an insane number of staff, I had never seen so many staff in a restaurant before, even though the restaurant is quite small... there were also many managers.

However, all the staff including the managers literally did nothing, they just "looked busy" in order to get their pay check. They were so lazy and avoided eye contact with all customers, I had never witnessed anything like this. All the staff would just hide behind their curtain and peek through it occasionally like children and walk around the restaurant to act busy as a formality.

Now, onto the food... As I mentioned previously, we all ordered the tasting menu. Now my understanding of a tasting menu is that it must come in the specific order mentioned on the menu along with palette cleanser, pre-desserts, chef's welcomes etc. There was none of this and the food came in any order. Our mains came before our appetisers. I questioned the waitress about this and she said " the food will come when its ready and when chef feels like it”, the waitress had this creepy psycho grin which I can't get out of my head. She was even grinning and laughing when we were angry and complaining.

The food itself was shocking... beef skewers were bone dry, cold and chewy. Chicken from seasonal tasting menu was raw in the middle. You would definitely get better pan-Asian food from cheap high-street chains like Wagamama, yo sushi, busaba etc and way better service and extremely cheap.

One tall bald manager came to our table and asked if the food was good, we said "not really" and he just walked off smiling. This was shocking, if you ask a customer how things are and they give honest feedback you’re supposed to ask why and the make it right. There was none of this. The dessert platter which is not on the main menu but is part of the tasting menu looked nice however mainly consisted of fruit, they give these pastry ball things which is filled will banana ice-cream and tasted horrible and were rock solid. When asking for the bill this was brought over straight away along with the waitress bringing the payment machine straight away, when it came to taking the payment, we advised the waitress we were not happy and that the service was terrible. Ironically when it came to asking for the bill, this is what came the fastest. We were basically serving ourselves the whole time and they still wanted us to pay for the service charge.

We got no apology and told her we were not paying the service charge whereby she just grinned again. Avoid this restaurant at all cost, they won’t even give you compensation for the shocking food...

I had to send this letter three times and still have not had a reply.

Dear Mr Bardot, I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to express my disappointment and concern regarding my recent dining experience at your establishment on Saturday, 2nd September, for my sister’s 40th birthday celebration.

Firstly, I commend the person who booked the venue for their effort in providing all the dietary requirements, including my vegan preference. However, my visit took an unfortunate turn when I arrived at the restaurant and reiterated that I was the individual on the booking with vegan dietary restrictions.

Throughout the evening, I diligently confirmed the vegan nature of each course, especially those with sauces. However, when it came to dessert, I was served a mixed platter with a crème brûlée. As a long-term vegan of over ten years, I immediately recognised that crème brûlée contains eggs and milk, which are not compatible with my dietary choices. To ensure there was no mistake, I called the waitress over to clarify, and she assured me that the dish was vegan. Regrettably, after consuming a couple of mouthfuls, it became evident that the dessert was not vegan. This oversight led to an unfortunate stomach discomfort, as my body is no longer accustomed to dairy consumption.

Daniella, whom I believe is a manager, approached me and apologised for the incident. She also admitted that the individual responsible for desserts needed to have an understanding of the distinction between vegan and vegetarian options. I was disheartened that I had to request the removal of the dessert from my bill, as this should have been a gesture of goodwill from your establishment without my prompting. My meal was removed for the bill.

My previous experience at ROKA Canary Wharf on Mother's Day had left me with a very favourable impression of your brand, particularly the outstanding service I received. However, this recent incident at ROKA Mayfair has left me with reservations about returning to any ROKA establishment.

Restaurants need to take their customers' dietary requirements seriously, primarily when they have been provided in advance. The oversight in this case was disappointing and potentially harmful to my health.

I kindly request that you take this matter seriously and consider implementing additional staff training to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future. I hope that by sharing my experience, you can improve your service and uphold the high standards that ROKA is known for.

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter. I appreciate you taking the time to look into this and I look forward to hearing...

Nice food and very trendy vibe place, but the service was really bad! So I would not recommend.

We booked a tasting menu on Opentable that no one seemed to know anything about. Even though they had it printed out!

We had to ask for the tasting menu even though my partner had selected it on Opentable, written in the comments and phoned ahead to check. When we asked they said it finished at 6.30pm, although it clearly says 6.45pm online. We showed them so they agreed we could order it.

We didn’t order drinks at first because we had a glass of bubbly included as welcome drink, but they didn’t bring that so eventually I had to ask for it. The waiter went and checked the menu in front of me before bringing it, so it was clear he didn’t know what was included.

They bought one soup when we were supposed to have one of each each. I asked the waiter as he put it down, and he said he’d check, but then visibly didn’t. I asked someone else, who bought it out, after a very long time!

Then we had mains, all fine.

Then they brought a dessert menu out… when they came to take the order I said ‘l think there was a selection of mochi included in the menu, so can we have that first and then decide if we want anything else?’ Off he went to visibly check the menu again! Came back with the mochis… we said we’d keep the dessert menus in case we could squeeze in something else as they all looked lovely and mochis aren’t huge… but then someone else came and took the dessert menus off our table without asking if we wanted any.

Then someone came and said ‘can I get you anything else’ and I said I’d like another cocktail, can we have the drinks menu back… they disappeared (presumably to get the drinks menu) and another member of staff came over and said ‘I’m really sorry, I have another booking for this table and nowhere I could move you to’ and essentially threw us out! Meanwhile, the girls on the table next to us had been there since before we arrived. So their table clearly wasn’t subject to a 2 hour limit like ours!

Also my partner had told them it was my birthday when booking, but they did nothing, but the lady on the table next to me got a candle and happy birthday written on her plate!

So overall I feel we got extra bad service despite it being my birthday, when I normally find restaurants will go out of their way to make it extra special.

I wouldn’t eat here again, purely because of...