Galvin at Windows

I recently booked a dinner at Galvin at Windows with important clients of my business. In general, the food and service was good – which is consistent with my previous experiences of dining at this restaurant.

For my starter I ordered the Seared Scottish scallops, wild sea vegetables & oyster emulsion. It was tasty, but consisted of only one scallop which I thought was quite meagre for a dish which cost £18. However, near the end of our meal, I noticed that other diners who had ordered the scallops had been served two scallops on their plate.

I queried this with the waiter who abruptly told me that the scallops that we had were much larger than the ones on the dishes served with two scallops. I responded that the difference was not so significant to warrant just one scallop and I felt that we had been short-changed. The waiter responded to this saying the chef had made the decision because my scallop was much bigger. He then made a hand gesture to illustrate the size of my scallop which was a gross exaggeration of the actual size of the scallop. By doing this, I felt the waiter was effectively calling me a liar.

Additionally, the waiters continued to serve us bottled water throughout the meal without any request to do so. In the context of a business meal, I found this to be acceptable. However, at the end of the meal (when everyone had almost finished their coffee) they opened and served yet another bottle of water which, at this stage of the meal, was entirely unnecessary and simply an opportunity to increase the cost of our bill. I also raised this point with the waiting staff and, after considerable disagreement, they reluctantly agreed to remove the service charge and the coffees from the bill. Given that the service charge is a discretionary option, I found this offer to be highly insulting.

Overall, I found the manner in which the waiting staff dealt with me to be very unsatisfactory. Their rude and arrogant approach to my concerns and lack of apology for serving dishes of different quantity to that of other diners in the restaurant made me feel like a second-class customer, which is extremely disappointing when I have eaten at this restaurant many times.

The next day, I telephoned Galvin to see if they had changed their attitude, but sadly it remained the same. The member of staff who received my call was very agitated and did nothing to allay my concerns. In fact he approached the complaint in a very erratic manner. One moment he would casually announce "If you want the £18 you can have at" (which was in and of itself insulting) and the next moment complaining about the cost of the bottled water he had removed from the bill. This was confusing, unprofessional and offensive.