Papillon — Restaurant in Southampton

One star is generous as the building is nice…

Exec summary: Attended as part of a large 250 person group - exclusive use of the restaurant investing £10,000 in one night. Awful experience Very poorly organised No communication about errors/delays Inedible food (starter and main, with no sign of pudding) No idea what was going on Terrible customer experience Customers were forgotten Blame culture manager (who hid upstairs) Lack of control over timing No offer of apology compensation on the night – eg free bottle of wine/prosecco for each table…. Offer of 50% voucher off next meal after the event…. NEVER GOING BACK!

Communication: No warning about staffing issues and potential delays No communication on the night on delays from Manager No one seemingly allocated / managing each table Excuses given on the night about how it was UHS’ fault

Timings: Between 20:00-00:10, - over 4 hours - we received a below standard starter and an awful/disappointing main Main course arrived 23:45 Pudding didn’t arrive – we had to get home to relieve the babysitter

Quality of the meal: was awful and not worth £4 let alone £40 three small puff pastries with a hint of cheese, with small dry dip risotto was colourful (red) but undercooked and had literally zero flavour…literally none… Plain rice cooked well would have been nicer pudding – not sure as we left after midnight after being told at 23:55 (after having to ask) it would be 15-20 mins more

DJ / music: suddenly the volume was jacked when the DJ came on and played really loud, so we couldn’t even hear each other talk. I had to go up to request him to turn it down which he did but not enough. If we had all eaten and had a great night, this could have been manageable as we could have had a dance however being stuck at our tables awaiting food that either tunned up tasting bad or not tasting of anything, or dd not turned up at all didn’t help…

Blame: The blame should not be placed on the group as it should never be the customer’s fault (especially blaming 250 people). If the group didn’t come back in time with the information required, it is the venue’s responsibility to flag this and act on it. The decision was made by the manager to proceed therefore the expectation should be that they can handle the booking…. If the venue did not have the information they needed, they should not have proceeded or should have informed, via speaker (could have been group lead or venue informing everyone), that as some had not responded and therefore it was important to sit in the right place etc… The venue is in control therefore responsible and accountable for making decisions on ‘go’ or ‘no go’… If there were staffing issues on the night, this should have been managed better and not affected the booking. If the restaurant wasn’t ready to go ahead with the booking, for both venue staffing or group organiser not responding, then the booking should have been cancelled – poor service for the group and poor reputation for the venue is worse than a cancelled or rescheduled booking. We each (250 people) paid £40 for a service which turned out to be the worst experience we have ever had.

Conclusion and request: This was the worst meal experience we have EVER had. This was so far below par (massive understatement) experience that I would only ever ask for a full refund to our card for the £80 (2 people) that we wasted that night… Excluding the £80 we had to pay for our babysitter to allow us to be tortured with the...

I booked a table for 9 people and informed them that we were eating ahead of a theatre booking. Two days before our reservation, I rang to request an increase from 9 to 11 people and was informed that, unless I heard back, that would be fine. On the evening we arrived and were advised that the change to the reservation had not been actioned but that it was not an issue, (not sure why it was mentioned then 🤷‍♀️). They originally placed us in front of a live band which would have meant that we would not have been able to have any form of conversation during the meal, but, I think they also realised this and so relocated us upstairs to another table. They were relatively efficient in taking our drinks order, although the waiter was not very well informed in what choices were available in regards to bitters and pale ales, so, eventually, one of our group went to order his drink directly at the bar. Unfortunately, the evening went downhill from here as, despite being the first into the restaurant , we were then left for an hour whilst other diners were fed and watered. It took two trips to prompt them into action and the second time we had to actually state that it was either our food or the bill to be on our table within 5 minutes!! Eventually, after 1.25 hours of sitting down, the food arrived, although one meal was incorrect and so that had to go back and more time was then spent waiting for the missing meal, resulting in that person sitting through the theatre with indigestion, due to having had to gulp down their food! The accompanying Yorkshire's, whilst a nice size, were inedible, burnt on the outside and so dense inside that not one person was able to eat them. The rest of the food was nice enough but the overall experience was most unfortunate and put a damper on the evening, (they were gracious enough to deduct 10% from the bill, without prompting, but, this was still a disappointing evening). It was a real shame as my previous visit to the restaurant, (not on a Sunday), had been enjoyable and so I had pushed for this to be our venue for this...

Having been recommended this restaurant, my daughter and I were really looking forward to a nice evening, following a very stressful few months. Sadly we were very disappointed. My daughter is dairy free due to health reasons. Upon asking, only one starter and 2 mains were on offer to her. Okay, we chose and ordered starters and mains, plus 2 glasses of wine. After waiting some considerable time our main courses arrived...... Unfortunately we hadn't had our starters, or our drinks. Eventually my daughters starter was bought out.... but not mine, still no drinks. We waited. Eventually my starter arrived. Great... but no drinks.... My starter of scallops looked lovely, unfortunately it was cold, and the centre uncooked. It was taken away. Drinks, after asking again, arrived. My starter came back. All was good, but my daughter who had long finished had to wait. Mains then appeared. Looked lovely. Unfortunately my Ragu was cold and again had to be returned. Sadly staff seemed very lacking, although the young man that dealt with us was pleasant, although forgetful. No dairy free choice for dessert, so coffee was ordered. Yet again we had to chase it up as we were forgotten.

Sadly we wouldn't recommend or return. We did begrudgingly pay the bill as we were in a rush now to get out and see our show at the mayflower, and there was no one to discuss the booking with as the young staff were rushed...