The Courtesan - Dimsum, Cabaret, Burlesque — Restaurant in London

DONT RELY ON YOUR BOOKING BEING VALID if you are booking for a birthday or special occasion, do yourself a favour and give this place a miss as the communication is so poor it’s not worth your time. Sort the reviews by 1 star and see the theme of hostile management.

Arrogant behaviour and terrible bookings manager. Accidentally double booked here, one booking for dinner and one booking for dinner and a show. We sent multiple emails saying we would like to see the show and dinner. Communication was poor to say the least but after multiple emails expressing we would like to definitely be seated for the show courtesan cancelled one of our bookings and sent us a email link to pay the £20 Burlesque cover charge.

One could assume that would mean that we have been accepted to see the show since we had been charged for it in line with their terms and conditions; otherwise why would we be paying this (plus we had sent multiple emails expressing we would like to be seated for the show)

Our booking stated we were only seated for dinner but this was at odds of the deposit we paid for the show so we sent another email re-affirming that we would like to be seated for the show. Radio silence on their end again but so we assumed, incorrectly, that surely if there was an issue they would reach out; especially if our group has now paid £100 before even entering the business.

So we arrive to our booking to no one at the door despite a please wait to be seated sign and awkwardly standing outside in the could before we decided to just head in where we were then shown to our table; to a non burlesque area.

We ask, who we assume was a manger, that we had booked for the show, explained the double booking and that we requested clearly in email that we wanted to see the show and had even been charged the burlesque cover charge.

This resulted in some of the most poor crisis management I have ever seen. The manager was rude and insistent that we were in the wrong and that we should read the fine print next time, at which point we showed him the fine print in question, the one that states we the £20 per person we paid be only applicable to patrons who are seeing the show. He refused to acknowledge this and then the rest of the time argued in a gish gallop manner, refusing to acknowledge or hear anything we had to counter, saying it was a miss communication. To be clear we communicated very clearly over multiple emails and now were taking the brunt for THEIR poor communication and booking management while being accused that it was all our fault for the communication.

The situation could not be handled more poorly with his sheer arrogance pouring out of his demeanour so bad that our whole table was disgusted with the managers behaviour so much they all requested we leave immediately.

All could of been avoided if we were met with an apologetic stance; instead we were met with arrogance and confrontation with all the blame shifted on to the us, the patron.

We live across the road and thought we would try and support local but with the poor booking system, lack of communication and hostile management, courtesan does not deserve to survive in...

I wouldn’t recommend this place to my worst enemy! Absolutely awful - we will never go back here!

It was a disaster from start to finish. When we asked some questions about items on the menu staff had no idea, they clearly don’t know the menu at all. Food then arrived suspiciously quickly and all in the wrong order. We had to ask them to slow it down otherwise everything would have arrived within 3 minutes of ordering? Before we’d even had a chance to finish a glass of wine?!

The pan fried pork dumplings were actually inedible. They were not fried at all, the dough was so thick and soggy it was completely raw - they were disgusting. When we asked the manager if they could be fried and cooked a little more she was incredibly rude and said this was how the chef cooked them and that they were absolutely fine. She then took them away and we had no idea if more were being brought back to us or not. Turns out they weren’t.

We had to pour our own wine all night which usually I wouldn’t question but other tables were having their wine poured. The staff were inexperienced, undertrained and completely inattentive. When asking for the bill, a man I can only assume is the owner came over and asked if everything had been ok. When we mentioned that it hadn’t been the best experience and told him about the dumplings his exact reply was ‘No, they were cooked perfectly. This is how our chef cooks them and will continue to cook them’ - it was so aggressive, patronising and rude. Not one apology anywhere or any responsibility taken for the numerous issues we had experienced.

As we left the manager and waitresses were huddled together chatting and despite looking at us as we walked out didn’t say goodbye or thank you - so incredibly rude. Our meal came to £84 and quite frankly I have had food that is a thousand times better from street food stalls where the service has been cheery and friendly, not rude, patronising and passive aggressive. The food was distinctly average - not worth the money and definitely not worth the aggro of having to deal with the staff! Avoid...

After our initial booking was cancelled due to me not paying the deposit for the table quickly enough (I had emailed to request a change to the table numbers, which was done and then 2 days afterwards, the booking was cancelled) I encountered the rudest treatment I have ever experienced with the (assumed) manager of the venue.

After rebooking that same day of the cancellation and accidentally requesting the table twice due to an error at my end in selecting 'dinner only' initially, I requested a second booking for the Burlesque show, emailing the venue, multiple times and asking them to please book us in for the burlesque table, apologising for my delayed payment of the initial booking. I then received a payment link for the £20 per head deposit which in the terms and conditions of the email is bolded stating "only applies IF you remain or book for the burlesque show." Assuming (incorrectly) that this confirmed that we had our burlesque table booking, we arrived on the night and were told that we only had a dinner reservation and that all tables were charged the £20 burlesque charge and refunded if you didn't watch it (forgive me, this seems VERY misleading to make us pay for something we definitely were not able to have?).

I understand that the double booking was my error but after emailing multiple times and paying the burlesque charge, I feel that we were clear. The manager was completely rude and made me feel extremely uncomfortable to the point my boyfriend had to come to assist me in trying to speak with him. When showing the manager the explicitly stated bolded burlesque charge text, he dismissed us. No attempt was made to try and seat us in the show area or apologies given, and we felt so appalled at the interaction the manager that we left.

The demeanour of management was completely unacceptable, and unprofessional. For a venue not to check their email is extremely poor. The tagline of their emails is "Thanks so much for your support—our community means everything to us right now". They aren't doing well in fostering that...