Zaza — Restaurant in London

We have been going to Zaza for years and we booked for a special occasion. We were a party of 9 including a baby.

When we arrived into the restaurant, we were greeted by the waitress saying 'We need the table back in 2 hours.' We had not been told this at the time of booking.

What surprised me was that after giving us a time limit on the table, the service was SLOW. We were often looking around for someone to come and take our order or clear the plates which were sat for a considerable amount of time after we had eaten.

We were aware of the time limit on the table, so we were prompt ordering and did not take our time.

We waited 20 minutes for our dessert order to be taken. When the waiter eventually came over, they said 'you can have a dessert but you need to leave in 20 minutes.'

They then lied about the coffee machine being broken so they didn't have to take a coffee order.

The bill was then thrown on the table (with service charge included) while everyone was eating dessert.

While the baby was being put in her pram at the end of the meal, a waiter stood rolling his eyes, with his arms crossed and tutting.

All the tables in the upstairs of the restaurant were completely EMPTY, with just one table of two occupied. So why on earth are they basically throwing people out?

When I raised this with the manager at the end of the meal, she shouted over the top of me, was rude, and admitted she had only just come on shift. She said that they made it clear that we could only have the table for two hours.

I said it was absolutely fine to have a two hour time limit, if they could successfully serve a party of 9 in two hours, but they clearly couldn't. It is not the customer's responsibility to allocate enough time to a table, it is the restaurant's.

Whilst I was raising the issue with the manager, the same waiter who had been tutting and rolling his eyes, was laughing.

Zaza used to be great. But now the food is expensive and the service is horrendous. It was a masterclass in money grabbing, greed and zero customer service. We will never...

What a disappointment, never again.

Booked well in advance for a Saturday night meal for three and was really looking forward to it. Have been to Zaza in both Bushey and Pinner and had nothing but good experiences so thought it would be nice to have a change of scenery at Ruislip. How wrong I was. Arrived to be shown our table which was right next to the front door and in the middle of the entrance walkway - directly where anyone walking into the restaurant waiting for their table would hover and not a suitable space to enjoy a quiet family dinner. I understand the past few years have been challenging for restaurants but even if you do want to add some extra seats in less-than-ideal spots, you should at least warn your patrons before allowing them to book these.

When I asked if we could be moved, I was asked what was wrong with the table and when I pointed out the uncomfortable dining arrangement was greeted by apathy. I asked if we could be switched to one of the many other empty tables in the venue and was told they were all booked but that we could "wait to see if someone left". I had booked our table weeks ago so to be offered clearly the worst seat in the house and then treated essentially like an inconvenient walk-in for asking to move left an extremely sour taste. I found the staff member I spoke to, to be cold and rather rude.

Feeling frustrated and unwanted, we decided to take our business elsewhere and received a warm welcome and a lovely meal across the road at Mamma...

We arrived for our pre-booked table of 8 and were told, as we sat down, that we had to finish within 2 hours as they had taken another booking. This is not something we were informed of when we made the booking. We were eventually asked if we wanted dessert and were told we had 20 minutes to eat it and leave the table, and were then told that 'the coffee machine had just broken in the last 5 minutes so we couldn't have a coffee'. A likely story! It is important to note that we were not slow in ordering or eating. Unfortunately Zaza staff were incapable of serving a three course meal within 2 hours! Had this meal not been for a sombre occasion we would have made a fuss and had the very undeserved service charge removed from the bill. The bill arrived before we had finished eating the desert, staff proceded to stand next to the table waiting for us to leave, and one member of staff stood, arms folded, tutting, whilst a small baby was placed in a pram. How rude. Furthermore the whole of the upstairs part of the restaurant was empty! All our friends and family have frequented Zaza Ruislip before but will never go there again.

This is the first time I have had to write a bad restaurant review. If I could have given no stars I would have.

Zaza Ruislip spoiled an...