The River Restaurant by Gordon Ramsay — Restaurant in London

Edit following the restaurant's response: Dear Guest Relations Team, I have spent my own time to bring some issues to your attention. It seems, you have not even skim read my review let alone taking my feedback onboard. And yet you have responded to it in a quite ridiculous manner! Where exactly in my review I am saying that we have enjoyed the food but not the service? I have given 3* stars for food and 4* stars for service, although now after this response of yours I feel I should reduce the 4* stars to 3*. My main criticism was about the food and I got this response: "...we are delighted to hear that you had enjoyed the food at The River Restaurant, we are truly sorry to know that the service provided didn't fully live up to your expectations." The name of the kitchen god Gordon Ramsay, plus "Savoy", one of the iconic London hotels, made my husband and I have huge expectations and choose The Riverside Restaurant for our belated wedding anniversary. However, the experience was quite underwhelming from the booking to our exit. 🙄 We are grateful indeed that we were accommodated although our gift card had expired two days before I contacted the restaurant. I emailed, and phoned, and emailed again the restaurant a few more times, but the booking did not go through. By the way, the gift card looks very beautiful but the email on it is misspelled. I let them know, but got no response. Eventually, we popped in at the place to arrange the booking, but we were referred to the Savoy reception. Fair dos. There I was given the same email, (spelled correctly), and then I was advised to book online! 🙄 The following two days I kept trying to book, the website kept saying that there was a technical problem. After many attempts we got booked but honestly, if I had not already paid for the gift card I would not have been that persistent. 🤔 On the "Big day" my name was on their booking list! Phew! However, once we were seated and began our starters, the hostess came and asked me to confirm my name again. Then she said that there was a problem with our reservation, but we should not worry. What?🙁🙁 After so many efforts, including walking in to speak to them and book on the spot? And if there was a problem, how come my name was on their list then? 😊 So far, I was expecting none of these to happen at such a high end restaurant, but yet more little disappointments were to come. The dress code is something I shall really emphasise on! Members of staff asked us twice if we had a special occasion, and there were many guests who were celebrating and they were dressed smart unlike some other guests who had turned up wearing tracksuits, shorts and sports shoes! 🤔🤔🤔🤔One of those guests even put her foot on her chair and tied her shoelace before she left! 🤔🤔🤔 Since there is a dress code, inappropriately dressed visitors should not be let in. The same applies to the staff. Food-wise: For us the star was the brown butter - it was delicious, well seasoned, glossy and well presented. The ceviche starter was very good, but definitely not the best we have ever tried. The salmon was very good, the skin was crispy but nothing "Wow". My husband and I are divided about the portions size. I think they were decent, my husband says they were "starter size". My husband found two thick bones in his salmon fillet. Of course such things happen, but we were not expecting this at a Gordon Ramsey's restaurant. 🤔 Then the boiled potatoes were undercooked. The sauce was not enticing even to a "sauce person" like me. Usually I would have licked up all the jus/gravy but not this time. My husband's jus remained intact. The sticky toffee pudding and the chocolate desert were good, but again nothing exciting.

We used to go to Simpsons in the Strand which was a part of the The Savoy group and there is no comparison. They knew how to treat customers. I am really sorry for these comments but I definitely expected more and hope the stuff will take the constructive criticism on board and will come...

Having previously eaten at the Savoy Grill under Gordon Ramsay, last night for my wife's significant 50th Birthday, and also staying overnight at The Savoy, we booked a table at the newly opened River Restaurant. As both of us are lovers of seafood it was the natural choice and the menu looked amazing. I had advised both the hotel and the River Restaurant of the special occasion and the hotel were amazing including the American Bar giving us the best table in the house right by the pianist for our pre-dinner drinks. The experience in The River Restaurant was however absolute Chalk and Cheese compared to everywhere else. Once we were seated and handed menus we ordered a bottle of Rosé which arrived warm. We tasted it but asked for it to be chilled. I was really looking forward to ordering mussels, only to be told that they had run out, despite other diners on an adjacent table eating them. The waitress did apologise and said that her colleague who gave us the menus initially should have mentioned that the mussels had run out at that point. Nevertheless I ordered the Prawn Cocktail to start, followed by fried Plaice in the bone and my wife ordered oysters to start followed by the whole grilled lobster. The Restaurant was not overly busy but afer about 20 minutes, with some foccacia bread being served in between, my prawn cocktail arrived. See picture. One lonely looking prawn on top with a load of spicy sauce and mashed avocado underneath on some lettuce leaves with a few thin slices of grapefruit. Not quite sure where the rest of the prawns were. Disappointed is an understatement. I sat and waited, for nearly another 10 minutes until my wife's Oysters actually arrived. Which was crazy bearing in mind that both were cold starters. The explanation we got was that the oysters etc are prepared in the middle of the Restaurant whilst other food is prepared in a kitchen located elsewhere. My wife said not to worry and said to the waiter "I am sure your timings and coordination will improve as you get used to the system". The response we got was quite surprising....."That's unlikely.....because there is no communication between the two areas" ...Unbelievable. My wife's oysters were great so no issues there. However we then waited nearly an hour for the main course to arrive. We were in no rush but an hour without any real contact from the waiting staff was not acceptable. Yes our drinks were topped up but nothing more. So far no one had even mentioned a happy birthday to my wife, so as a tester when our mains eventually came my wife made a mention of her birthday...which literally got no response other than a brief smile. Again food wise my wife's lobster was great, and so it should be for the price, however my Plaice on the bone (when I really wanted mussels) was poor. A couple of side dishes were acceptable. After that and as time was passing we skipped dessert, however when my wife made a mention to another more senior waiter about her 50th a small token spoon sized chocolate mouse turned up with a blackberry on top. A nice touch, and not that we were looking for anything specific. But whereas everywhere in the hotel clearly knew and had been Well communicated to, The River Restaurant missed by a mile. So to sum up, really will not rush back there. The food is hit and miss, and the service was extremely poor. I felt like not paying the discretionary service charge but did anyway. Chef Ramsay needs to get his team at the River Restaurant actually to communicate to each other, otherwise the level of service is not even close to every other guest touchpoint in the hotel. 2 stars is actually a bit on the generous side. Let's see if this genuinely honest review gets some...

The service from the wait staff and sommelier was great even though I did not take the sommelier advice as a good wine would be wasted on me.

Atmosphere was nice and the wash rooms, definitely the most fanciest I have ever been in. Only thing I would suggest is taking the white branches with Christmas lights away from the window or maybe all together. I found that looked tacky and either some were not working or not turned on as the ones on the left did not light up. They also blocked the view of the river and the city lights which was a shame because we where lucky enough to be seated by the window. I don’t have a good sense in design so it might just be me, so still 5 stars for atmosphere.

Unfortunately the food was a let down for us. My wife wanted the scallops for her entree however once we ordered we were told shortly after they had run out so she ordered the the crab instead. Was a shame because the people next to us ordered the scallops and they looked amazing. When the couple left they forgot their bag so ran up to them to return it and saw a large table who had just been served scallops this is at least 50 minutes after we were told there was none left. I know at least 50 minutes because we ordered before the couple next to us got their entrees and the couple complained that they had to wait 40 minutes between entree and main and they had time to eat their main and leave. Apart from that our entrees were really nice and I enjoyed the beetroot entree. The mains are what really let the evening down. I had the beef wellington. It was cooked perfectly and the red wine jus was nice but that was about it. The pastry wasn’t flaky, the pate was hard, dry and very little flavour. Very little difference in flavour and texture from the pastry to the pate. My wife had the fish curry and there was little sauce and too much spinach (at least that’s what we think it was). Couldn’t taste, feel or see the cashews. The curry smelt good but the flavour was missing once added to the rice. Either needs more sauce or more flavour.

I would have rated 3 stars since the entrees were nice however, when we are paying decent money getting above average pub quality mains for this price it is really disappointing. A real shame since we are on our honeymoon from Australia and this has been our most expensive evening out other than the Moulin Rouge.

We somewhat lied to our waitress and sad every thing was good as we didn’t want any discount and the staff already copped it from the table next to us and I know it’s not the waiters fault. I feel when you are paying that much the food should be better and a dish advertised as popular in the menu highlights online shouldn’t run out of stock when our reservation was at 5:45.

All in all, if you are an average wage earner like myself, I would not risk this place for a special evening. If you are wealthy and eat at higher end places then it is worth a go as I’m sure they hit the mark most...