L'Estaminet

This restaurant has now closed. A new place has just opened on the site (The Forge) which I am trying out on Friday.
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Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Wednesday, March 21, 2007

L'Estaminet has to be the finest French Restuarant I have been to in many years. The snails are good, the chateaubriand is delicious and the chariot de fromage is unsurpassed. Excellent wine list and great advice from the staff. Thanks for making my anniversary meal so special!
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David
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Friday, October 06, 2006

This is a pretty and restful room off Garrick Street, and the pre-theatre menu at £16.50 for three courses was just about interesting enough to plump for over the rather pedestrian a la carte. I went for tartlette au fromage as a starter (cheese on toast) followed by steak bavette which was excellent. Dessert was a chocolate maquise with raspberries. The maquise was dry and the raspberries were a spludge. But OK as a pre theatre meal. When the bill arrived however they had charged us for each item separately and one of our party with an eye for financial detail realised they had overcharged us by a whopping £16.50. They put it right but without a word of apology. Nice enough meal but a nasty taste.
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David Coleman
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 4
Friday, August 18, 2006

L'Estaminet used to be one of the better restaurants in the West End but now, like so many other restaurants in this area, it seems to rely on easy tourist money. We had a terrible meal there last night.

The service was awful: very young, untrained waiters who don't know that you should clear the appetizer plates before you serve the main course. They got some orders wrong, but their English was so poor that eventually we realised that they could not understand our requests: an order for coffee brought a creme brulee (after we had already had dessert!). Worse, one waiter was wearing a large bandage on one of the fingers of the hand he was serving with - probably unhygienic, definitely unappealing.

The food was mediocre at best - my fish was dry and overcooked, and yet it wasn't even warm. Similarly, the roasted potatoes were cooked to the point of being far too soft but they were served almost cold. The chocolate tart was sickly sweet and nearly inedible.

They could not even make a decent gin and tonic: it was a watery concoction with melted ice cubes.

At £43 each, this just isn't good enough.
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Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 0
Wednesday, July 19, 2006