Cielo

I agree with the above review. The service was extremely bad. The food was ok but not amazing. We paid £90 pp and wasn't worth it at all. Crowd was very strange as well with 80% being female. Just horrible. Will never go there again. Be warned this place is a waste of money and there are so many nicer places to go to in London. Avoid!
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3 Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 1
Monday, November 29, 2010

Anyone thinking of going to this restaurant MUST READ THIS.

I have to eat out about 5 nights a week for my job and never in all my years have I ever been treated as rudely as I was at this restaurant (not to mention the fact that it was by one of the owners!)! To cut a long story short, a popular website was offering a voucher for Cielo so I thought ‘why not go along and check it out’. For some reason I was led to believe that the voucher was a 3 course set menu, worth £60, for two (well you would hope so at that price) so I purchased two vouchers thinking I would take my partner and two friends of ours. Upon making my reservation I mentioned that I had two vouchers only to discover that each voucher was actually only for one person, not two. Oh well, better to find this out before we turned up right?? So off we went, my partner and I, with £120 worth of food vouchers. Having arrived and been seated, we were presented with the menu which was clearly labelled as a £35 set menu and we were given a single cocktail each! Now, whilst maths may not be my strong suit, even I can tell that a £35 set menu + 1 cocktail does not equal £60! When we enquired about this we were told that the £60 each covered one set meal, a cocktail priced at £15 (which was tiny and tasted like apple juice) and half price entry to their club downstairs (which wasn’t even obviously open what with it being a Wednesday night) which would normally be £20! I couldn’t believe how misleading this had all turned out to be, we had paid £10 each for a club that we had no intention of going to and had we decided to give it a try in order to get our money’s worth, we would still have been expected to pay another £10 each to get in! Forget it! Well, we decided to not let it ruin our evening and got on to ordering our food... The set menu had a selection of 3 starters, 3 desserts and 3 main courses including parma ham and mozzarella, spaghetti with tomato sauce and lemon sorbet which was a surprisingly bland selection for a supposedly high end Mayfair establishment. The portions were ridiculously small and my partner was brought the wrong dessert with no explanation which, upon querying of the staff, turned out to be because they had changed the menu and failed to let us know both at the time of ordering and the time of serving.

As were finishing up two girls were seated next to us and after checking the menu one of them promptly went off to speak to the manager. Upon her return she proceeded to explain to her friend that they had done exactly the same thing as I had done and thought the voucher was for two people (coincidence, I think not!). Clearly embarrassed she told her friend that she wasn’t very hungry and they could share (not if you’re hungry I wanted to tell her, those portions would barely fill up a five year old). I leaned over and told her that the same thing had happened to us and she said how misleading the voucher had been. Like us, she was also shocked to have been charged half the entry fee of their club. I wished them a nice meal and we got up to leave. I felt awful that they were going to be sharing such a small overpriced meal and was amazed that when she had talked with the manager that they hadn’t used their digression to make sure they both ate, I mean at the very least they could have been offered a glass of wine (or spaghetti with tomato sauce!) in place of the club entry they wouldn’t be using (along with everyone else that had bought the voucher).

On my way out I decided to say something to the girl I assumed was the manager, I explained that I had overheard that these girls had done the same as me and that I thought the voucher was extremely misleading and I hoped that the manager would not let this lovely young lady sit in the restaurant all evening with no food (it’s clearly what any good restaurant would do). Instead of agreeing with me, however, she proceeded to tell me it was the last day of the voucher and that also it said (in the small print) that the voucher was only for one person. I agreed that that may be the case but that it would be nice, as it is the last night and the voucher had not been clear, if the restaurant made sure she didn’t have to sit there all evening feeling embarrassed while her friend ate. She wasn’t having any of it and just talked over me as I stood their smiling and being polite. As we were about to leave, a man walked in and she grabbed him and said ‘well this is the owner’. He came over with an extremely frosty manner (without knowing if I wanted to pay a compliment or complain) and when I started telling him what I had told her he just cut me off and said ‘We don’t do the voucher anymore, we will never do it again, it does not fit with the prestige of the restaurant’ as he turned and walked away waving a hand dismissively at me. I then said ‘well I hope you look after that young lady so she can have a nice evening’ and he closed the door in my face. I couldn’t believe what had just happened!! It was incredible that a supposed restaurateur could be so rude to a customer and care so little about the experience of his diners. He was astonishingly arrogant and rude and had absolutely zero interest in listening to what I had to say. Clearly it was his implication that anyone using a voucher was riff-raff and not welcome in his restaurant. Funny that such a ‘prestigious’ restaurant needs to be offering a voucher 7 nights a week!!

A disastrous end to the evening and I left feeling completely sick. At these prices, keep your money for a fabulous meal at Claridges or Nobu where they welcome every customer like they are a VIP and deserve the money that you give them.
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Strawberry-pie - View all reviews by this user
1 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Thursday, October 28, 2010

What a let down.

The food did taste good, but was very unambitious eg:"Linguine with tomato", "Chicken Breast with vegetables".

We were at Cielo on a deal and the set menu choices were very poor.

The manager was very rude and interrupted us in mid conversation to hurry us into choosing our dessert"As our table was on a 2 hour limit"not that people were queuing at the door and this was at 8:40pm when the 2 hour limit would be 9:30pm.

He also told us earlier that we could swap a dessert for cheese selection and then changed his mind!

My friend`s Tiramisu was just cream with 1 biscuit and a tiny bit of cocoa powder on top...unacceptable!

Our Seabass portions were tiny.

We did not want to leave a tip as the manager had been so rude and we felt hard done by.

He literally chased us out of the door when we left haven given no tip.

He was utterly rude to me as I very calmly told him our reasons for not paying service.

I eat out A LOT in the best restaurants in London and I have NEVER been spoken to like this.

Do not go here!
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4 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 2
Saturday, August 28, 2010

I went to Cielo on friday night after being there 3 weeks ago, the place is absolutely changed, the drinks were perfect, the food was ok and the new manager and the bar staff were very cool .

Definitely the place where you like to be.
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annett
10 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Sunday, April 04, 2010

I have been two or three times and really enjoyed it. Cool decor, great cocktails and delicious mushroom risotto.

Definitely worth a visit if you're in town and the upstairs lounge area is a great place to chill out after dinner.
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9 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 8
Thursday, April 01, 2010

I went there with a bunch of friends and we were very disappointed. The food was okay but you can find much better in the area for the same price. The personnel were rude which was a bit surprising. I wouldn't recommend it.
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Anthony
5 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 3
Sunday, March 21, 2010