Andrew Krug

Review of L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon Lon...

I was extremely happy when I was able to make a re...

I was extremely happy when I was able to make a reservation only a few days before I arrived in London.

The staff: The first staff you meet are the hostesses. They were nice but very confusing. We arrived five minutes before our reservation and our table was not ready. Which was odd because our reservation was for the first table of the evening when the restaurant opened at 1730. It took several minutes for the hostess to explain to us the situation. Apparently they are not used to people asking questions like, "how long will the wait be for our reservation?" They eventually took our coats, escorted us to the bar via a tiny elevator and sat us at a cocktail table. My wife and I were not terribly thirsty so we waited five minutes and told the bar tender we were heading back down to the lobby. We were told that we needed to be escorted and had to wait. We did. After a small wait we were escorted back down to the lobby and to our table. The hostess never asked for our name and sat us on the ground floor, Asian counter concept, part of the restaurant. Our reservation was for the first floor table part of the restaurant.

The wait staff was hot and cold. Our drink order was taken by two different women. We were served our food by two different men. I had no idea who our waiter was to ask question of. Everyone around us was having an engaging laugh filled conversation with their waiter. Not us. Perhaps it was because we were American and the first customers of the night but it seemed every other couple was paid more attention, conversed with, joked with, and received better service than us.



The experience: It was amazing to watch the executive sous chef (who was the head chef working that night) orchestrate her cooks like a perfectly practiced opera. Gordon Ramsey needs to give this woman a job has executive chef somewhere. The ambiance is interesting. Nothing that made me think "WOW!" but it was nice. The price is what we expected. Besides the wait staff and slightly off start to the dinner with the hostess I would definitely come back. I wanted to come back. I will come back.