Chez Gerard at the Opera Terrace

My partner and I went here on a sunny Sunday afternoon. We sat outside on the terrace, which is where the pleasant experience ended!

We were served rubbery undercooked steak, the worst aneamic chips you've ever seen, they weren't even cooked through, as were several tables around us! My starter was described as having a beetroot side but never came with it.

We complained about the chips and steak, the chips were changed to some slightly better ones but they said the steak was the way we'd asked for it!
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Karen
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Monday, November 26, 2007

A con, a tourist trap.

I went there with some friends on a tuesday night at 9 pm and we all were horified. This place should not be known as a French restaurant (i am french and I know what I am talking about) and should not be allowed to stay open.

It is over price, and my fish was over cooked as well as my friend's steaks. The service is very slow, not helpfull at all and very unorganised (the side dishes we order arrived half way throught our meal).

The foi gas starter was tasteless, the terrine came with a tiny, dry piece of "bread" and the gravalax had no salad served with it unlike it says in the menu description.

Despite all of this we decided to have dessert and we waited 45 minutes for it. We decided to complain to the manager but he look like he didn't really care and offers coffees.

The bill was presented with a £2 cover charge per person (for a tiny "cup" of olives and nuts and 1 basket of bread) plus a service charge that apparently doesn't go to the waiter as he was so desperate for us to leave a cash tips and offer to take it off the bill.

This is a pathetic excuse for a restaurant , a over price tourist trap and the people who manage and own this place should be a shame.
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Frank Cotelier
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 1
Wednesday, October 24, 2007

I only wish that I had read the reviews on this website before going to Chez Gerard at The Opera House. We had not made a booking and went there by chance and were at first delighted that they had a table for 4 outside. We were told the table would be ready in around 10 minutes so went to the bar to have a drink. 10 minutes later the table was ready and we were lead outside to a perfect table on the balcony. From here onwards things just got worse and worse. The light by the table was not working so we were unable to see the menu. When we asked one of the waiters if he could do anything about the light he told us to try hitting it. Eventually a candle appeared on the table which enabled us to partially see the menu. The Amercans sitting on a table to our right were however left in almost complete darkness. The service is extremely slow, the quality of food was poor, and the staff appear to have attitude problems. From sitting at our table to finishing our main course took almost 2 hours. We decided that we were not going to let it spoil our evening as we were entertaining some guests from overseas who were thrilled at the table we managed to get at short notice. We complained to the manager who was polite and very apologetic (probably he spent his whole evening apologising). When the bill came we had been charged for 3 out of the 4 bottles of Sancerre that we had consumed so we presumed that either the manager had taken off one bottle from the bill or that the lack of attention that the staff paid to its customers meant that they had not counted properly. It will be a place that I would not recommend to anyone and will certainly not be going back there myself. It is such a shame that we cannot offer a quality of service to our overseas visitors when they visit Covent Garden.
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David Price
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 1
Monday, September 24, 2007

Absolutely awful. Our waiter was hideously incompetant and kept forgetting things. Our white wine came out at room temperature and the table (on the terrace) was sloped so things kept sliding. We had to wait over an hour for our food. Even asking the managers didn't help - they were equally useless. When the food finally arrived they forgot our side orders, when the side orders came they were wrong. The food itself was OK but worth nowhere near the exorbetant prices. I had pate (which came with one tiny slice of dry bread) and salad (no dressing offered, and we'd given up asking for things as they never arrived). My partner had the sea bream which was well cooked but had barely anything with it. At no point did a manager apologise or offer us any kind of bill reduction or complimentary drinks.
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VH
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Monday, August 13, 2007

DREADFUL!

I have to agree with the previous reviewer. Service is slow and off-hand. Food is poorly cooked and expensive . Service charge and cover charge boost the bill and we came away feeling 'ripped off'. Felt they were taking advantage of tourists and fobbing us off with poor food. Would not accept such standards from my local braserries.

Would not recommend to anyone, wish we hadn't bothered and bought a sandwich at Pret instead.
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Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 0
Thursday, August 09, 2007

This place is a joke!! Do not spend your hard earned money here!

My friend and I went on a lovely sunny day and sat on the Terrace. Our starters arrived and were very measly for the price. I had cured salmon that was described as served with beetroot and cucumber salad, it actually came bright red with no salad, when I asked the waiter he said "it's very confusing, it's marinated in beetroot and the dill dressing has salad in it"!!! It had herbs in it! My friends Fois Gras was tiny and tasteless!

For a main we shared a rump steak that came served on a board for two! This was very chewy and we could hardly cut it, with steak knives! The frites they served us were DISGUSTING! We send them back as they were so undercooked they were stuck together, soggy and almost transparent. They brought us some more that were far too crispy and tiny excuses for fries.

We were going to order cheese for dessert but when we saw that it was actually a "weighed" piece of cheese that costs almost as much as a meal in France we decided not to.

This place can no way call itself a French restaurant, my friend and I have eaten in many french restaurants and this doesn't even come near to the roadside cafes!

I don't eat McDonalds but would have happily swapped my meal for one this day. We paid nearly £100 for our meal and left feeling well and truly ripped off.

Stay away from this place! It's a tourist trap as it cannot expect any repeat business.
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Sophie
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Tuesday, August 07, 2007

I would never visit this restaurant again.

Once we arrived, it took 30 minutes to get drinks, then we had to ask for them, and were told no! We were sat under the leaking roof (if you plan on going there then don't go on a wet day) where one chair got very wet. We asked to be moved, but they just moved the table a bit away from teh wall and didn't even wipe the chair dry for us to sit on.

The cover charge of £2 per person was a bit steep, especially since there is a service charge too.

Once we got drinks we tried to order food and on hearing that we weren't having starters, only mains and lots of wine, the waiter got a bit funny saying that there would be a long wait as the kitchen was very busy and we might as well have a starter whilst we were waiting. We stuck to our guns since the food isn't the cheapest, and ordered 3 steaks and a salad which wouldn't have put the kitchen to too much trouble.

the food itself was nice - nothing special, and the service was appalling - we had to go over to the till area to get a waiter's attention, and after another 30 minutes of waitinng for our bill, we decided not to pay the service charge. We paid the bill less the service and only at this point did someone decide to take notice of us and before we left asked why we hadn't paid the service charge.

If you're looking for rude waiters, appalling service and average food at a price, then this is your place. This must be a restaurant to make money out of hapless tourists. As a Londoner, I will not be going there again.
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Lucy
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 1
Thursday, August 02, 2007

Avoid like the plague. Service is horrible. The waiter took forever to get our order and was more interested in getting the tip from other customers (He wanted cash from us! and said so and this was on top of the service charge of 12.5%). The food is horrible. My burger was overdone. The Fries or frites.. whatever.. tasted like wood chippings and looked like it as well. Very expensive... frankly Mcdonalds does better food and costs a fraction. I will be posting this a few times as I think everyone should avoid this horrible place.

What a con!
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CyrusP
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Saturday, June 23, 2007

I've been going to Chez Gerard at The Opera Terrace every few months for several years now. The food and service have always been excellent, but, unfortunately, on recent visit clear evidence of things going badly downhill. The menu looked impressive as ever - prices still quite high.

However...the olives on the tables were a disappointment. Weedy small things out of jars - they were much better on previous occasions. No more white napkins - just cheap blue paper serviettes! The starters were very ordinary. The 'salade nicoise' , laid out in a somewhat unexciting way on a plate rather than a bowl was disappointing. On visiting the ladies' toilets we found that only one of six cubicles had a door that closed! That's pretty poor in a restaurant of that kind.

On a plus side, the bread was still good, and so was the service.

My companion did raise the issue of napkins (and toilets) with the manager. He said there were 'supply problems' (a problem obtaining white napkins?!).

The bill came to £70 for two, but - note - that's with just one aperitif, no desserts, no coffees, and we didn't have steaks...could easily be £50 per head for a more standard meal, and that's too much for what's being offered right now.

We have always loved Chez Gerard, and this restaurant lives on its reputation, so I really hope that the management read this and other reviews, and put things right.
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Debbie
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 2
Monday, May 07, 2007

I had dinner at Chez Gerard at the Opera Terrace and I have not had worse food. The price was extortionate for what was served. Fries were like they're from McDonalds. Food wasn't well presented. Two of my friends ordered steak to be cooked medium rare and it came as well done as it could be and burnt. My seabass was over cooked, so was dry and had nothing to complement the dish, just the piece of fish and weak sauce. The only thing that was satifactory was perhaps the soft bread. Of course the location was very nice as well.

I do not recommend this place at all; the standard of food is appalling. You can get a lot better around the area.
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Julia
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 0
Sunday, April 15, 2007