Chez Gerard at the Opera Terrace

Absolutely terrible. My parents were up in town to visit us and after a great day out we'd booked a table here.

For me there are two essential elements that are really easy to get right: 1) The customer should be offered drinks as soon as they are seated. 2) Someone needs to check that the food is OK after few moments to give the customer an opportunity to raise an issue.

Even this couldnt' be achieved here because the staff are overworked and disinterested in good service and some had a faily limited grasp of the English language. And even the food was bad.

Way over-priced (thank you tesco vouchers for easing the pain) for pretty standard fare.

Forgotten items that had to be asked for. First a spinage side was served cold which makes me think that it is precooked and then warmed through! Spinage takes about 2 minutes to cook! When it came back out it was scalding hot and very gritty. I sent it back.

The steaks were overcooked. My wife asked for a dessert without creme freche and it came out with creme freche on, after being sent back it came back out with the creme obviously scraped off and replaced with the requested ice cream, unbelievable!

I did have to laugh when the bill came with the service charge preapplied. Yeah right!

DONT GO!!
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Matt
Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 0
Monday, July 14, 2008

Utter disgrace- service was slow; when it did come, the waiter seemed to forget the things we had asked for (must be stretched pretty thinly..).

Food was overcooked and overpriced. My daughter's ice cream came swimming in a warm unidentifiable gloop - neither cream nor ice cream- its molecular structure had broken down in the long wait, no doubt. Neither the waiter nor the manageress seemed to know what it was. They promised to bring me just ice cream as requested- 15 minutes later, they bring me the same...without a spoon.

To add insult, they added the "cover charge", included 12% to the bill, then tried to get me to add an extra gratuity on top.

Will rather starve than go again- would advise others to do the same. Simply appalling, and all that is wrong with rip-off restaurants in London.
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Nick
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 0
Monday, June 16, 2008

I dine regularly in London as a major aspect of my job is wining and dining clients. I took a senior guy out there today, and quite frankly the service was shocking on every level. One word for this place: rubbish. They clearly base their business on passing tourist trade, maybe this is why they are so complacent and their standards are so low: AVOID!
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Daniel
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Thursday, June 05, 2008

Ate at Chez Gerard yesterday, and was very disappointed. Booked a table in the restaurant, and asked to be moved into the grill area, as the table they gave us was so tightly pushed in the corner it was hard for both of us to sit at the table comfortably. On top of this, there were workman drilling on the floor beneath us and we could hardly hear ourselves talk. When we ask to be moved, we were told they were busy, which was true, but no alternative was offer, or apology given, and I had to suggest moving to the grill/cafe area. We ordered two medium rare steaks, which were medium when the arrived, our side of green beans and mushrooms, arrived when we were 3/4 of the way through our meal and they even managed to bring us the wrong sauces. Very disappointed.
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Stewart
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 3
Thursday, May 29, 2008

Very dissapointing, I will definately not be going back!

My boyfriend and I went there for my 23rd birthday. Our waitress looked as though she really didnt want to be there and was not at all friendly or welcoming. Our starter came within a few minutes of us ordering it, which just seemed rushed - however the salmon was really nice!

We decided to have the Wagyu Beef for our main, as we had never tried it before and heard it was the best steak you can get - I couldnt believe it when it turned up well done, when we had ordered it medium rare - we sent it back however our vegetables stayed on the table getting cold and we were told by the sulky waitress that the manager said the beef was cooked perfectly and handed it back to us.

So we ate our cold meal, and then paid the £150 bill at the end of it.
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Elizabeth Wakefield
Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Thursday, May 15, 2008

I have been working in this restaurant for 7 years and it is a shame to see it ending up in a disaster.....

i was there for most of the 90s and believe me it was a great place to be and work for....also the food and prices were good. WHAT HAPPENED?????.
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Annen - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 0
Saturday, May 10, 2008

Sunday 5pm, table for two. We were asked to stand at the bar while they were preparing our table. My partner stopped me from asking why we couldn't sit at an empty and ready table (apart from cutlery) that we could see near us. After five minutes, we were showed to a table by the window, next to an air-conditioning unit on full blast. (This is the month of March.) I asked the clearly disillusioned South American waiter either to find us another table or to reduce the strength of the unit. He went away without uttering a word. Clearly, I was out of order and a trouble-maker. He came back after another few minutes to take our order. Not only had nothing been done about the air-conditioning, literally freezing my right side, but we had noticed an absolutely filthy glass of wine on our table. When asked to go and change it, I was made to feel as the most unwanted customer in the whole restaurant. Not a word, not an apology, a slow walk to the bar to get another glass, no eye contact and a scournful face. I innocently thought that this sort of behaviour had disappeared a long time ago. I certainly hadn't encountered it for many years. Unpertubed, the waiter came back with his notepad. When challenged about the air-conditioning that hadn't been dealt with, he went away to call "the manager". So, fifteen minutes after we had arrived, we were at last acknowledged by a professional. He swiftly moved us to another table and a charming and smiling French waitress arrived. My only other comment about the Opera Terrace is the £19.95 for a trio of fish. Hugely expensive for four mussels and three very small slices of tasteless fish. The steak, however, was excellent and with a home-made bearnaise. Will never go back, though.
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Jean Paul Guillaume
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Monday, March 31, 2008

Totally overrated!

My partner and I went to Chez Gérard in Covent Garden last night and were extremely disappointed.

Aperitif: You get automatically charged per person for tiny nut and olive bowls and some average bread and butter.

Drinks: The champagne and white wine were certainly not up to the standard of the reputation of the place nor the price.

Food: my fish was over cooked and I was missing an item from the menu. It came with some dry spinach leaves. The steak was good although the fries were dry and tasteless.

Service: the waiter couldn't advise us on the difference between two types of steak and at the next table the waitress couldn't tell her customers what a "panaché" was.

Overall: very expensive and overpriced for what you get. It's certainly not at Chez Gérard that you will find the "best steak-frites this side of Paris"! Gaucho grill serves much better steaks with very good wine for the same price!
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Maud
Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 1
Wednesday, March 26, 2008

This excuse for a quality restaurant was disgraceful. The waiters (poor souls) tried very hard their best to please but the food, place, and quality, in fact everything was absolutely awful.

We were sat in an overcrowded restaurant with people standing about aimlessly waiting for a table. The place was like a ships galley. …Constant flow of people making their way through. The restaurant was cold and the windows had bacterial residue along the edges.

The starters arrived within moments (were they prepared for someone else, who saw sense and cancelled). My Camembert was not even melted through…and the onion soup was like dish water.

The red wine was cold and the water was warm. Hmmmm.

Then the mains arrived. Very deeply disappointed. All the food had too much salt. The flavours were totally overpowered. The waygu steak was overcooked, rubbery and tiny….the sides were cold and lacked any flavour, the mushrooms tasted like tinned. I could go on and on….please don’t ever waste any time going to this awful place.
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Dr Doctor
Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Sunday, March 16, 2008

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