The Jolly Gardeners, Earlsfield

What a shame! The food here is great, and I've been telling friends how good it is. But had a nasty experience last week which has really put me off. Went for dinner and one of our party didn't get the dish he ordered - not really much of a problem as it was still great - but we were really disappointed with the wine. We ordered a bottle of Sancerre, but as they didn't have any the waitress suggested Chablis. Fine, but it came to the table far from chilled - we'd had to ask for an ice bucket previously when we'd ordered a bottle of Prosecco at the bar, so we stuck it in there. But when we ordered a second bottle, the waitress explained that we'd had the last bottle. We'd have preferred to have one wine and stick to it, so we were quite disappointed to switch.

We explained our disappointment, but all the manager saw fit to do was change the charge for the wrong dish we were given to that of the dish that was actually ordered. i.e a �2 off gesture. The bill was around �170.

I don't think the chef deserves for the amazing food to be let down by poor wine service and lack of customer skills from the manager. The manager sent the waitress over with the �2 off gesture rather than come over himself after we'd spoken to him.

A real shame.

1 Sep 2008 14:32