Bennett Oyster Bar & Brasserie

Just left the restaurant after waiting for an hour for breakfast after ordering. Restaurant was empty. Staff were useless - no explanation given for why so late, nobody even offered us another drink after taking our order, waitresses just kept saying its coming. Really appalling service and experience. A disgrace given the competition in the square - there are plenty of other options. I live in the square and its a pity to have such an appalling restaurant so close.
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Mark Roy
1 Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Sunday, September 25, 2011

The food was good but not good enough to cancel out the atrocious service! We waited 55 minutes to place our food order. In the meantime they got our cocktail order wrong. We then waited ages for our starters to arrive. Meanwhile no sign of bread & butter, no sign of the water we'd ordered & no sign of the wine. The latter arrived only because we were looking forlornly at the sommelier as he was delivering wine to another table & asked if we'd ordered some! The wine was served after our starters had been consumed.... The main courses also took an age to arrive & when they did the side order of spinach was burnt! The maitre'd came over to ask how everything was whilst we were nearly finishing our main course. So, I told him about the terrible service. He offered a free drink - I didn't want any more alcohol so declined & said I'd rather have money off the bill. He offered to remove the 12.5% DISCRETIONARY service charge. Like I was going to pay that any way! A while later he appeared with 2 cocktails for us - remember I'd specifically said I didn't want a free drink. I could rant on some more about the poor service & attitude but the nail in the coffin as far as we were concerned was that the bill, when it finally arrived, not only still had the service charge on it but also the "complimentary" drinks. My advice - avoid this place!
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2 Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 0
Saturday, August 06, 2011

Had dinner here recently and must say the experience was very disappointing. Food was average, service was poor and staff didn't seem to care a great deal. Won't be rushing back...
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4 Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 3
Sunday, July 10, 2011

A really disappointing evening. We were seated at a strangely shaped table, which wouldn't have been conducive to conversation, even if we'd been able to hear ourselves speak over the background noise of diners' chatter, amplified by bad acoustics. To be fair, they were pretty good about changing our table to one that allowed our small group to actually look at and talk to each other over the course of dinner.

Service was friendly, if a bit dippy - waiters kept forgetting our order and returning to the table to double check, and the maitre d' forgot to pass on the information that we'd changed table, so after a very long wait for our food, we were frustrated to see the waiter appear with it, tour the room in confusion after discovering we weren't at our original table, and return to the kitchen.

In the end, it hardly mattered. The oysters were good, but so small that the price per gram must have exceeded that of gold bullion. The whitebait had been waiting in the kitchen so long that their batter had turn them soft and gloopy. Mains were little better. A half a lobster had been under the grill so long the flesh was hard and dried up. The meagre pool of garlic butter did little to moisten it. A steak was so badly oversalted it was hardly edible, and the grilled fish was mushy and tasteless.

The wine selection is limited - what's on the list is nowhere near as exciting as the wines dispensed in small measures by an oenomatic machine in the corner of the restaurant's small shop. Again, it hardly mattered - what we were served was several degrees warmer than it should have been and, as a result, tasted soupy and sweet.

Prices were way too high for both the level of service and quality of food. Given how reliant Bennett's is going to be on local trade, I can't see it surviving as word of mouth will be pretty terrible if our evening was anything to go by.
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2 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 0
Sunday, April 17, 2011

We ate in Bennett and we are really pleased to see the space in Battersea Village finally being used.

Making the reservation was not easy and on arrival at the restaurant the staff seemed to be unclear as to who was doing what. The reception desk was unmanned and nobody seemed to be managing arriving diners.

Some coats were taken and others were not. Staff seemed to be partly meeting and greeting and seating and then part way through taking your order they were off doing something else.

Steak should be avoided (but in fairness it is a seafood place) and the home made scampi is appallingly overpriced for what you get, but the monkfish was excellent and well worth having.

A number of diners seemed to be complaining about the lack of organisation and clarity of roles by the staff, but all agreed that overall the food was worth it.

This is a NEW restaurant so some problems are to be expected and service is easy enough to fix. As locals, we wish them every success.
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Malachi Williams
6 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 2 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 7
Wednesday, March 16, 2011