Thursday, April 28, 2011

Les Deux Salon, Covent Garden: Service Makes the Other Half of the Equation

Les Deux Salon opened its doors last year. A sibling to Arbutus and Wild Honey, I was looking forward to it after a glowing review which placed dreamy notions in my head of a dessert known as Floating Island.
With a friend's turn of the decade birthday coming up and a celebration venue was in order, we decided to head to Les Deux Salon.
The decor exudes a muted charmed elegance and while waiting for the rest of the party to arrive, it gave me time to soak in the ambience.
After placing our orders, I could see the place getting busier as the minutes passed.
I don't remember much about the dishes that was ordered as it was a birthday celebration. Forgive me as I was distracted, so I could only show the photos.
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Hand-chopped Scottish beef tartare £8.95

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Roast saddle of rabbit, spring chard, carrot & cumin purée £17.95

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Floating Island with Pink Praline & custard £5.5
What did I get for dessert? The Floating Island of course. It arrived and was just the most exquisite and pretty looking dessert. A meringue that was so light that it was floating and bobbing slightly in the pool of vanilla custard.
The meringue just vanishes and melts in your mouth leaving a slight trace of sweetness from the cream. The cream itself was light and not overly sweet. I am in love with this.

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Throughout the whole dinner, service was quite absent. I could see our waiter but he hardly looked over to our table to check on us. Is it because they were busy or we had a corner table?
But how do you explain when our water was only refilled twice and it was sitting empty for at least 15-20 minutes many a time and frantic waving of the arms was not successful either. In addition, I could see him topping up a glass that was still half full two tables away.
I managed to catch the attention of someone else that was setting up an empty table and after notifying her of our request; she nodded and proceeded to continue to set the table. Another ten minutes later and it was clearly forgotten again. What IS going on here?!



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Enough ranting. As we were there to celebrate a birthday, we made a request earlier to have the slice of cake taken out at the end and presented to the birthday girl. It arrived and we sang and then we stared. We could only stare as no cutlery was given for her to eat the cake. If I wasn't cheesed off by the service, I would have laughed.

 
Am at a loss for words. Les Deux Salon, you make good food but the service is sorely lacking. 

Will I recommend: A very reluctant and hesitant yes. Actually, I changed my mind, no.
Will I come back: No
Have I had better: Food was great but I've had far better service

Les Deux Salon, 40 – 42 William IV Street, London WC2N 4DD
http://www.lesdeuxsalons.co.uk/


Les Deux Salons on Urbanspoon

2 comments:

  1. Oh dear. I had a better experience with an earlier lunch at Les Duex Salon though the host was a bit wanting. Was it crowded to begin with?

    ReplyDelete
  2. London Chow - It wasn't when we first arrived.

    ReplyDelete

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