Gilgamesh

Had a great lunchtime meal there last weekend. Couldn't fault the service or the food.

We thought going for the 50% offer we would receive small portions and maybe not as high a qaulity, but you know what-- IT WAS BRILIANT.

Next time we will go in the evening to enjoy the atmosphere better.
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chris blunsdon - View all reviews by this user
9 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 10
Sunday, January 29, 2012

On Saturday 24th December 2011, myself and 3 other guests had a reservation in the main restaurant of Gilgamesh.

I was extremely disappointed from start to finish, our experience was appalling. The service you provided was unsatisfactory-to say the least.

Our night was as follows; We had a reservation for 8.30pm for 4 people. We arrived and your Maître d’ took our coats and advised that as the restaurant wasn't that busy, would we like to have a drink at the bar, we accepted. We ordered 2 cocktails, a glass of wine and a bottle of beer. At 8.50pm your Maître d’ advised us the table was ready, we asked if we could wait until 9pm as our drinks hadn't arrived yet.

We were seated at the table at 9pm right at the back of the restaurant in the corner (where we had to bring our own drinks to the table). We placed our order and we were at this point offered more drinks, we got a bottle of wine. Both servings of edamame arrived, I unfortunately had to send it back as it was over cooked and soggy, we were given a replacement this wasn't any better. I didn't bother to send it back but I did make a point to mention it to our waiter that it was still over cooked. We ordered various sushi rolls which were not up to the usual standard, 2 servings of crispy chili squid, and some other bits. When the squid arrived it was luke warm and like the edamame very soggy, not 'crispy' as stated on the menu. I did not complain at this point. I would have loved another drink before 11pm but our waiter failed to notice that 3 out of the 4 glasses were empty for most of the meal and not once were the wine drinkers glasses topped up, we did this ourselves. One would have thought staff are trained to continuously offer drinks whilst guests are still eating and after guest have finished, as the drinks are rather expensive and as we all know this often bumps up the bill!

By 11pm I was extremely disappointed by our experience on Christmas Eve. I bring a lot of my friends and clients to the restaurant/bar and have always had exceptional service and of course the food is always great. I asked for the Manager on duty as I believe it is in their interest to know if neither the service or the food standard are up to their usual standard. I explained about our experience. He did apologise and said 'I will sort this out for you'.

We ordered 1 dessert.... What can go wrong with 3 spoons 1 dessert?! Dessert came quickly however, we had started to enjoy the dessert and had taken the biscuit out of the ice cream when another waiter came along with a second dessert, to advise us that he had given us the table behind's dessert in error, to my disgust he took this one away (without the biscuit in the ice cream) and put it already half eaten on the table behinds table!! (Very unhygienic and not what I would expect from a restaurant that is in a lot of the tourist books! )

11.30pm I asked for the bill to find that nothing had been deducted from the bill. I was not complaining for a discount, however I would have thought some sort of compensation would have been offered. Again I spoke to the manager, and said I was very surprised that nothing had been done. To my shock, his response was: "I investigated the Edamame and the Chefs confirmed they were cooked to perfection. I also out of good will didn't charge you for 1 bottle of water, as you were waiting some time for this. I also didn't include service charge on your bill". I replied with, service charge is OPTIONAL so this was irrelevant as I wouldn't have paid for service as we were not satisfied anyway. To top off our evening, we went to get our coat, where we were greeted by a large que of people as someone's coat had gone missing. Our coat tag was not on the correct hanger therefore we had to find our coats ourselves-unacceptable!

I explained on Wednesday 28th December over the phone that I would be writing a letter of complaint. When I asked for an email address I was told, 'You will find it online'. I don't have time to search around for email addresses, or take time to write written complaints. Your staff should have been able to give me this!

It is a shame as I was a regular customer of Gilgamesh, and after my experiance I am now reluctant to return.

(After having not even an acknowledgement to my 2 emails I sent in - this seems to be the only other option!)
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Sarah - View all reviews by this user
0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Customer service, management, food all 1/10. I would not recommend this to anyone at all. I was so shocked, I had very high expectations. No apologies for their service and the food was not to standard. They need to improve this drastically. 1/10 overall.
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0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 0
Sunday, January 08, 2012

worst service ever..... our table was booked for 9.30 and we finished eating at 1.30 so you can imagine how POOR the service was.... on average the drinks took around 30 mins or more to arrive and the poor excuses the management gave were ridiculous... definitely would not recommend it to anyone, totally ruined my birthday.
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Sara Nejad
4 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 3
Saturday, January 07, 2012

I am aware that there have been some rather negative reviews on the Internet so want to add our experience last Sunday night. I agree the bottle water costing more than the beer and nearly as much as the wine was a little steep but apart from that, the food was hot and delicious, it came quickly and the service was very good. I was on crutches and the staff could not of been more helpful. It was a special birthday for our grand daughter and they put a candle on the dessert and made sure that they knew her name when they came to the table. The atmosphere was excellent, suiting us old wrinklies and the young birthday girl. She was just disapointed that she did not bump into any celebs.but that is rather beyond your control.

We will come again without doubt.
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Jenny Moody MBE - View all reviews by this user
8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 7
Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Never again! We were really looking forward to eating here as one of our friends recommended it. What a disappointment. The food was o.k but the service was terrible.
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3 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 3
Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Went last night for dinner with 3 friends. The building is stunning and the decor really plush. The food was of a high quality, looked great & tasted good. A couple of minor service points - the curry dishes are big enough to share and this should be pointed out by the staff to avoid waste. Also other courses like the Thai rare beef salad were tiny portions, again this should have been advised. It was very busy but the service overall was still good. Its a very mixed crowd from late teens to mid 60's. We spotted one of the guys from JLS, as did a number of very young looking girls who were obviously out on the prowl looking for a footballer. It is that sort of place. We didn't bother with the club as the average age was around 17!! (we are in our 30's) We stayed in the bar and had a great night, even though we were overcharged twice, so check what drinks you're paying for.
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EjW
7 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 3
Sunday, September 11, 2011

Went here for dinner for a friend's birthday on the Sunday of a bank holiday weekend, expecting a meal to match the sumptuousness of the decor. The decor and background is fantastic, it is so exotic and just looks amazing.

As we were a group, we had to have the set menu, and I am a vegetarian so ordered the veggie option.

The food was absolutely TERRIBLE and that in itself would be paying it a massive compliment; starters consisted of boiled cabbage in a roll, a kebab that i could have made on my barbecue, and sushi-style rice roll.

Mains were sticky rice, some sort of flavourless mushrooms boiled in water, and yet more boiled cabbage in a bowl this time. We had to ask for chilli sauce to give the meal even some semblance of flavour!

The only saving grace was the dessert, some sort of chocolate orange mousse, and that is just because I have a sweet tooth.

All of this food for 25 pounds a head, PLUS drinks PLUS a 12.5% service charge. No value for money here.

If you want good decor, come here, if you want a good dining experience, go somewhere else. I would never recommend this place to any vegetarians for a meal and will never be coming here again.

I have been in the bar before, and although overpriced, I would highly recommend it; however the restaurant staff and chefs should be ashamed of themselves. If you come to Camden, get some street food instead, its a lot better!
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Sachin
4 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 0
Monday, August 29, 2011

Went Friday night for a friends birthday....It was probably the worst service experience I have had EVER....... we waited an hour for our starters and when they did arrive they were lukewarm..... We had the set menu sharing starters duck spring rolls.....cold, lemon sole flavourless over cooked & watery & a trout and mango salad that was inedible ( I didn't know you could make trout have the same texture as beef jerky absolutely horrid) & this arrived after 1 hour of waiting???

I then asked to speak to the manager & saw a string of different managers one after another telling me they had to get their manager?

I explained the situation once again and said we wanted to leave and would not be paying for the food but would pay our drinks bill (we even had to explain how to make a Tom margarita.

This is when our waitress walked passed and the manager made me have an argument with her telling me there are 2 sides to every story (fair enough) but to make me argue with the waitress REALLY. I was told we would have to pay the food bill as we had eaten and not complained (how does that work...what was I doing). I then had to explain again we were only on our starter & had left half of that...... He then looked at me like the penny had dropped offered me a bottle of bubbly seating in the bar a round of drinks but I said we just wanted to go, paid for our drinks and left.

I have never felt so enraged about a situation in my life to be dealing with a manager who clearly has no management skills in how he didn't handle a simple situation absolutely unbelievable.

Oh yes forgot to say I have been in the catering trade for 24 years and run a group of restaurants. I told the manager this at the end of our conversation.... He put his head in his hands said why didn't I tell them who I was at the time of making my reservation..... So fellow diners if you want to be made to feel special you know where to come for a great experience NOT!!!!!
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1 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 0
Saturday, July 30, 2011

We had a great night at Gilgamesh. We had a table for 15 and had the kings table overlooking the whole restaurant. The food was really good and the staff were really friendly. It is expensive however the quality of food was excellent - sashami, scallops, Great blackened Cod and Melon and Duck Salad along with the old favourites duck spring rolls and green Thai curry. You pay for the venue and the atmosphere as well as the food. All good.
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7 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 6
Monday, May 23, 2011