Frankie’s at Criterion

Went on a Wednesday evening pre-theatre as a group of 6 on a business outing. Lovely venue but weird and mostly unfriendly service and would recommend spending your money elsewhere.

We told several people we had a 730 theatre to go to, but they took ages to take our order. And the main courses arrived about 720 so we had to gobble up our food. The food wasn't bad when it did arrive, but portions were small - I had John Dory with samphire for a £5 supplement on the set menu, it was tasty but gone very quickly - perhaps fortunate given the time before the show started, but my colleague joked he'd have to stop off at KFC on the way home!

The service was a bit random, we were given nice bread and replenished. But the waitress who took our drinks order missed out two of us.

However what really got our goat was that we'd been sent a menu via a booking company (Encore) and when we got there the menu was completely different. Fair enough but there was no vegetarian option, and one of our party was on a strict diet and needed to eat chicken breast. She was made to pay £17.50 for the pleasure of this, gobbling it down in the 5 minutes before it arrived. The manageress was unfriendly and difficult and claimed it wasn't their fault we'd been told a different menu.

A lesson to us all that in recesssion times you should be good to your customers, I won't go back and don't recommend it to anyone - there are so many good and friendly restaurants - why bother with this one.
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Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 2
Wednesday, March 25, 2009

This place used to be good, but we went again last week and it was pretty dire. The venue is beautiful and the staff were delightful and helpful, but the food was very disappointing. Edible but uninspired and totally overpriced. The place was less than half full.
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OrangeTreeLover - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 0
Saturday, February 21, 2009

Will someone please do something about this restaurant? What a waste of such a beautiful space.

We went there for our Christmas lunch yesterday and we were all thoroughly unimpressed, even angry at the price we paid for such substandard food. The service was unfriendly and unhelpful. We were brought no fewer than 3 different menus (consecutively) to choose from when we were already pressed for time - no sooner had we chosen from one menu than it was taken away and replaced with another, and so on. The food was rubbish in all respects - from presentation to taste - the crispy duck salad was awful. My monkfish was tough, the mash so much less tasty than we make at home and the mushrooms flavourless and cold.

Don't waste your money!
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Erica
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 0
Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Beautiful restaurant, very mediocre food. I had the mushrooms on French toast, and honestly couldn't eat it. Soggy, greasy, not good at all. Big slab of calve's liver on a mountain of mash with a large dollop of soggy spinach. Sort of reminded me of school dinners.
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Crispin - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 1
Monday, November 03, 2008

We went to Criterion last night and it was a hugely disappointing - MPW should be ashamed at the quality. For the price it's not good value for money at all, there are a lot of far better places to eat in London for this price. The whole experience wasn't very good and it's obviously a restaurant that no-one really cares about, the attention to detail wasn't there and everything was sloppy. A member of our party worked for Marco years ago when he was at his peak and the stories he tells of the attention to detail were incredible - Marco obviously doesn't feel the same way anymore, I doubt he's stepped foot in Criterion for months.

The service wasn't great, the waitress couldn't pour wine and spilt it on the table every single time she poured it, the tonic in our g&t's was flat, the pasta one of our group had to start was overcooked and pretty tasteless, the tap water i ordered never arrived (although they happily bought the bottled water we ordered). The starters were largely disappointing apart from the french onion soup which was nice. The mains were a little better but still not good enough to warrant the price. The room is amazing and it's one of the nicest venues to eat in, it's just a shame that the food and service don't meet up to the fabulous decor.
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naughtyk - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 2
Saturday, August 16, 2008

I have just come home from a most dissapointing meal at this restaurant.

The sevice was freindly and polite. the food awful. we ordered a beetroot salad to start. the beetroot was paper thin and had been sitting on the plate for quite some time - I had to peel it off, the green salad which was supposed to garnish it, was in fact a few leaves out of a packet - not a fresh one at that. we ordered smoked haddock as our mains - when it came the people on the next table complained to the waiter that when they had tried to order it there was none left. after i had tasted mine i wished that the waiter had told us the same. it smelt stale, tasted insipid and wasn't helped by lumpy mash and a not very pretty poached egg on top. all in all a total waste of a lot of money. shame - the room is very ornate and we were expecting better from it. the next table were not impressed by the tiny helpings either. Sorry, you'll have to try harder with the cooking or hire a chef that can cook and serve fresh food.
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max - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 1
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

I took clients here for dinner a couple of weeks ago and came away with very mixed feelings about this place.

The food was, on the whole, very good, although two of the main courses which we tried to order were not available and we were only told this when we tried to order (this is probably a pet hate that is individual to me, but I think you should be told when you are handed your menu if anything is unavailable, rather than have your time wasted in considering the menu and then be forced to make a rush decision in front of the waiter!).

The Entertainment was original, with a magician attending at most tables with interactive magic tricks.

We were certainly not rushed! In fact, the time between courses was actually commented on by the group. In all, I think our party of 8 spent over 2.5 hours having dinner!

The real problem I found was with the service. The restaurant was probably less than half full and there seemed to be ample people milling around in uniform although it became almost a game to try and get the attention of someone to order more drinks or simply to ask for sugar for the coffee's!!!

All in all, I don't think I'll be rushing back here, as, despite the size of our bill, I was left feeling like the staff really would have preferred we bother some other restaurant!
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Liz B
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 7
Wednesday, March 12, 2008

I work in the building above the restaurant and as such feel obliged to pop down from time to time for lunch and / or drinks.

It is certaily one of the most spectacular rooms in london and should be an awe inspiring location for a restauranteur.

Unfortunately it has been uniformly dreadful every time - the service is terrible, slow and amateur. Waiters have spilled drinks on my clients, or on the table every time we have been there.

On one occasion we wiated in the bar trying to order for 10 minutes and just left.

The pizzas are just about ok.

This should be one of the great locations to dine in london - will someone please fix it!!
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charles lemon
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 1
Monday, February 04, 2008

Went for Sunday lunch yesterday (two couples, one teenager and two under 10s). I would have been embarrassed to serve food this poor in my own home....in fact I could do better. The meat (I had roast beef) was overcooked and of poor quality. This was accompanied by 4 carrot batons, an over-cooked (ie verh hard) yorkshire pudding and a fondant potato. When I called to book I asked whether it was OK to bring children and was under the impression that they were used to catering for families. However there was not children's menu and we ended up having to order full sized (and full priced) roast dinners for a five and an eight year old. It might be a beautiful dining room but it's easy to see why it was no more than a quarter full!
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sue stevens
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 2
Monday, December 10, 2007

After a great time at the Saturday Matinee performance of Les Miserables, I had booked a table for 9 at the Criterion to keep with the french theme.

What a disappointment! The service was terrible, although the restaurant was busy as you would expect there were plenty of staff, but unfortunately none of them understood english!

The starters were superb and some parts of the main courses were very good too, but unfortunately all the vegetables accompanying sauces and even the green salad were extremely salty, the over saltiness spoiled the main courses. Desserts arrived in 2 shifts and the coffees were cold.

We informed the maitre d' of our views and he initially argued with us and then gave us a long string of excuses. He "generously" took the optional service charge from our bill, something we were intending to do anyway! The final straw came when we paid the bill and the restaurant's card machines, which were held together with tape failed several times before eventually allowing us to pay our bill.We left the restaurant feeling like Les Miserables ourselves.

Needless to say we won't be returning.
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Elliot Mount
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 0
Monday, October 22, 2007