Bistrot Pierre - Stratford-upon-Avon — Restaurant in Stratford-on-Avon

Dear Bistrot Pierre,

I do not often like to leave complaints and you can check my review history to confirm this. However, I am writing to express my disappointment with the service I received at your restaurant on Saturday 20/05/2023. I had made a reservation for my girlfriend's birthday dinner, and we were very excited to try your restaurant.

I've come from London and I understand that Stratford-upon-Avon is the home to the great playwright William Shakespeare and the staff at your restaurant must be well versed in his works because they were doing their best to reenact a comedy of errors.

Unfortunately, our experience was far from what we had hoped for. The wait between seating and receiving our main courses was almost two hours. When our drinks arrived, the Pimm's was not strong enough, and the vodka lime and soda tasted like it had no alcohol despite the bartender insuring us there was vodka in the glass. The attitude of the bartender was rude and dismissive, they resolved the problem by bringing an extra shot but then added it to the bill at the end.

Furthermore, the manager would shout orders when they were brought to us, which was very unprofessional. He would also shout "steak" when five different people had ordered steak in different ways. This was very confusing and disruptive.

By the same token, the staff were also very unprofessional. They asked to take our order and then walked away. They did not take our deposit off the initial bill, and we had to ask for it to be reduced. We also asked for a few slices of extra bread to be brought out for our parfait, but we cancelled this after 15 minutes because it took too long because the kitchen was too backed up. I can understand a kitchen being busy but taking this long to grab bread is unacceptable.

One of the waitresses seemed unsure of herself and asked us to wait when we asked to order drinks. Another waitress did not seem to understand how to use her tablet for ordering and was searching for drinks in the food section.

When I tried to complain about the service, the same waitress having issues with her tablet repeatedly interrupted me before I finished what I was saying and did not listen to any feedback . After all of this, she asked what the occasion was and, upon hearing that it was my girlfriend's birthday, asked if we wanted "bubbles." We assumed this meant champagne or prosecco, but she actually blew bubbles in our faces. She was smiling and laughing while doing this, which seemed to indicate that she did not understand that our mood was sour and this was not appropriate at the time.

I went to relay my feelings to the manager and another patron was mid-complaint. The manager apologized for the problems we experienced, but the excuse was that the kitchen was busy. However, not all the tables were occupied and in my opinion a restaurant such as this should be able to function with the number of people present on a Saturday night. If they are unable to run a service then they should refuse bookings and this may explain the delay in food but not the abysmal service.

I am extremely disappointed with the service I received at your restaurant and I am flabbergasted by the attitude of your staff. I expected better, especially for a special occasion like my girlfriend's birthday. I hope that you will take my complaint seriously and make an effort to improve the service at your restaurant. I would have been happy to just leave this at the restaurant but it did not seem like any of your staff were interested in receiving any criticism or...

My partner and I booked a romantic meal on Saturday night of the 25th of September. We arrived slightly early and were show to to our seat. Immediately we noticed that our table seemed to be jutting out into the walkway and asked if we could please be reseated at a quieter table. The floor manager then appeared and told straight away that the restaurant was busy and we would waiting longer than normal for our meals. We were obviously not keen on this and we asked again if we could be moved , this seemed to be ignored and we then went on to see three other couples being seated in much more suitable tables. The manager then went on to tell us that they had two large tables of 25 and 12 that were being serviced and that if we we wanted to order our mains now she would inform the kitchen to rush them through.

We then ordered drinks with my partner asking if she would be able to sample the rose in the sparkling wine selection. We then waited Ten minutes for the drinks to arrive with the glass arriving FULL and not as a sample.

With this and all the other issues we decided that we weren’t happy with the whole experience and decided that we would leave.

As we were looking for a nice relaxed and romantic meal , Bistrot Pierre in Stratford managed to ruin the whole experience with what seemed a lack of care for the small covers and had decided that we would be rushed through to suit them and the large tables that they were more focussed on.

I understand that restaurants can get busy but please that is one of the considerations that must be anticipated so that customer service doesn’t drop for customer looking to enjoy the dining experience.

As a final note , I sent a version of the events to the complaints email for Bistrot Pierre and they to date have not replied. This just highlights the way some customers must...

We've been to Bistrot Pierre many times before and always had delicious food and excellent service. Disappointingly, this was not one of those occasions. Having arrived 10 minutes early for our 4:30 reservation, we waited about 30 minutes for our drinks order to be taken. We asked if there was a good beer on tap and were recommended a pretty awful lager: “It's nice. Trust me, it's nice.” It was not nice. When our food order was eventually taken, we had one person who only wanted something light: one of the starters to eat as a main. It arrived as a starter, but when we checked that the mains were also coming we were told they were. The starter had to go back. We'd ordered a beef bourguignon and a vegetable bourguignon. The vegetable one arrived first, after nearly an hour, and announced simply as “bourguignon.” We asked, “beef or vegetable?” “Beef.” OK, that's over there. Then the other bourguignon arrived, and we were told that was the beef. After making absolutely certain, the plates were swapped — somewhat clumsily — but the vegetable bourguignon, despite being on a plate too hot to handle, was cold. The extra portion of chips and the chips with our burger were cold. The chips were replaced with warm ones, but the bourguignon was barely warmed up at all. We sent it back, and our guest ate elsewhere. The beef bourguignon was at least warm, but what I assume was pancetta in the sauce was overcooked and hard, and the dauphinoise potatoes tasted very acidic, like vinegar. This was all very disappointing and embarrassing — we'd recommended Bistrot Pierre on the strength of our previous excellent visits, but unfortunately our guests left with a very poor impression and will not be visiting again, and we're left wondering whether our intended visit to the Nottingham restaurant at the weekend is a good...