The Water House Project — Restaurant in London

My husband and I visited Gabriel’s restaurant last weekend. It was quite challenging to secure a table, and it took us a while to make a reservation. My husband is a chef, and I consider myself a discerning critic, so we were eagerly anticipating our experience at Water Project House.

Upon our arrival, we were greeted by a staff member who asked for our reservation details, but they did not inquire about our jackets. The restaurant was relatively quiet, with about three empty tables out of a total of twelve. One of the staff members approached us to explain the wine and non-wine menu, but unfortunately, she seemed untrained or insufficiently briefed, which left us confused from the start. Eventually, a more experienced colleague took over and provided us with the necessary explanations.

Throughout the evening, we were served different wines with each course, and we received brief information about each dish and beverage. Initially, it was fascinating to learn more about the dish, but after the third dish, it started to feel mechanical and insincere from the staff. Gabrielle herself visited our table twice to introduce the dishes, but the connection and communication were lacking. We expected a higher level of personal touch and interaction when dining at a restaurant of this caliber.

As soon as we finished our meal, a staff member promptly presented the bill. Surprisingly, during our departure, no one was at the door to bid us farewell or return our jackets.

Regarding the food, we found most of the dishes to be average. While the presentation was aesthetically pleasing, the creativity, execution, ingredient quality, and serving fell short of our expectations. The standout dishes were the Cods roe, Hampshire rainbow trout, and Cornish crab. However, we were disappointed with the Devon EEL soup, Peterhead cod, calcots and cheese, as well as the mini sweets dishes (PISTACHIO NOUGAT, PEAR PASTILLE, LAVENDER MARSHMALLOW), which were below average in quality.

We paid £350 for two people (£150 per person for food and £50 for service). Overall, I believe this establishment requires some improvement in terms of its culinary offerings and definitely needs to provide more friendly customer service, particularly from the...

I booked this restaurant after doing my research on the up and coming restaurants in London about a month and a half prior, to celebrate a very special occasion. Alas, my partner had a very bad episode of food poisoning the night before (which led to him being bed ridden for a full whole day with no appetite) and I wrote in to the restaurant in the morning once we discussed that it doesn't make any sense for us to be there.

Restaurant offered to put the seats back online to see if it gets sold, and if it doesn't we would have to pay for the deposit fee (£50pp).

I explained to them over that this is a very unfortunate situation that neither of us would want it to happen. Who would want to fall ill on a holiday?! But they were adamant on the fees and kept going back that it's "company policy". I actually mentioned to them that by doing so, this really doesn't build up the longevity of the business especially with assumptions made that guests only want to cancel and not actually being ill. However they mentioned they NEED to take the deposit for the longevity of the business (honestly you're only focusing on the short term gains as claimed by them that "food will be thrown out since it has already been portioned out and there is a cost to that" instead of really trying to empathise with a customer or meeting in the middle).

Coming from a country with renown world class restaurants, I'm appalled with their level of service and empathy. All they could mutter was "we apologise for your husband's situation" and nothing could be done. I even offered and suggested that if they took 1 persons deposit instead of 2, since we understand there are cost involved but they were adamant on charging for 2.

I can't be bothered to visit this restaurant in the future ever, and will share with friends on the "ethical" company policies they uphold to.

What a disappointment.

PLEASE, for future guest reference they take a deposit for £50pp, not flexible to any changes FIVE days prior to your visit. It's honestly absurd to ensure nothing will happen 5 days prior. But well, we'll leave it to the management to consider for their longevity of...

10 Course tasting menu by Gabriel from Great British Chefs; really was looking forward to this tasting experience. The food sadly fell a bit flat, and a lot of hit and miss for an east London warehouse fine dining. Cod dish was so salty I had to drink a lot of water to wash it down. Chicken was a bit bland and lack of depth expected for something so very simple.. if you choose to put chicken as one of the main dish you have to do it to the nth degree as it is a dish that's very difficult to elevate. The mushrooms (two slice) were very good, perfectly pickled and flavour profile. The tomato consommé was exquisite and the deserts were of similar standard. However personally for me there are a lot of better east London fine dining for much better value. Casa Fofo, Behind, Perilla, Planque .. and the list just goes on. Note some of them are much cheaper and 1 Michelin star!

I personally understand the difficulties of running a high end restaurant as I have a lot of friends in this industry. But due to unforeseen circumstances one of our friends had to cancel their spot. But the rest of us turned up. There was complete miscommunication the next day we have been charged £100 for that spot. I understand there's a lot of ingredients prepared and therefore you have to charge this. But for a tasting menu of 110 pounds, you are charging 100 pounds cancellation when the rest of the party turned up. Does this make any logical sense? You are telling me that every tasting menu ingredients cost 90% of the entire proceeds? It's illogical and punitive. Never taking anyone work wise or personal there ever again....