daph

Had a set lunch - about 23 pounds each for only 2 courses - at Crivelli's restaurant in the National Gallery. The main course was 3 large, round salmon fishcakes on the plate with nothing else, excapt a inedible garnish of yellow "greenery". How boring, expensive and unimaginative. When I complained the manager told us to pay for a side dish or go dine on the other, cheaper side of the room. We wanted to have a nice lunch and the other side was full of noisy kids. I guess you don't go to a museum for the food but stay away from this one!

afterall

You've answered your own question!!
You don't go to a museum for the food. Part of me thinks it's a shame they can't make more of an effort. A bigger part of me says, well, the only people who eat in such places are tourists and those on expense accounts. And didn't you check the prices before you sat down?

Next time you could get some nice gourmet sandwiches from Tesco and have a picnic. The NG is free so you can go back in for nothing.

Thinking about it, maybe that's why the food is so expensive, and such bad value. The gallery is free, so maybe we are supposed to think of it as an indirect contribution?

PatrickLondon

Did you really not read the menu when you asked for a set lunch?

If there's a contribution to the Gallery I would guess it's very indirect, with the space let to a catering company. The bigger the institution, the more likely (I would guess) that the company would tend to the unimaginative.

zippo

Posters seem to blame the customer.
The place is called a restaurant. It shouldn't serve bad food - no excuse.
No wonder UK food is so bad when this is seen to be OK.
Thanks for the tip.

walkinaround

i agree, zippo. the customer is not to blame here. it's in our culture to accept the kind of crap that the OP has described.

how many britons have the same experience and talk about how 'lovely' it is? the reactions here are exactly why we have such low standards in our country. being an important national museum and one of our top tourist attractions, the museum should enforce standards in their catering to require at least reasonable value for money and quality. otherwise it just reflects poorly on london.

obviously people should not expect a top culinary experience at a museum restaurant nor should they expect the cheapest meal in town...but people should not expect not to be fleeced like this. that's just taking the pi$$ really. shameful.

flanneruk

Something here doesn't compute.

The National Dining Rooms (Crivelli's was closed in 2006) would win no awards for value for money. But its menu certainly isn't boring (http://www.thenationaldiningrooms.co....asp?menu=2010). And the last thing you could say about Oliver Peyton, who's in charge, is that he's unimaginative.

Whenever I look in, it seems to be full mostly of my more elderly and better-heeled Cotswold neighbours, grabbing reliable food on a day up in Town. Scarcely a tourist or expense account in sight.

But you can't miss the menu outside telling you what you're getting for your £24.50, and I'm as puzzled about why daph went in after seeing it as I am about why her description is so unlike what's on today's menu.

I wnder if the chef was having a "too clever by half" dsay, and daph just didn't get it.

caroline_edinburgh

The OP didn't say there was anything wrong with the fishcakes. Apparently s/he was unable to deduce from the menu that they didn't come with any side dishes. And evidently there were side dishes also available to order. I'm with Patrick, did s/he not read the menu ?

Cholmondley_Warner

God but there's a lot of bollocks being talked.

In fact one of the best places to get grub is in a museum restaurant.

I'm sorry you didn't like your fishcakes, but Oliver Peyton is a first class restauranteur (and a first class prick - but that's by the by). He runs the tip-top restaurant at the Wallace Collection.

(and The Fan Museum in Greenwich does the best afternoon tea I've come across)

PatrickLondon

Damn, we shan't be able to get into the Fan Museum tearoom now.....

walkinaround

>>>>>>>
Whenever I look in, it seems to be full mostly of my more elderly and better-heeled Cotswold neighbours, grabbing reliable food on a day up in Town.
>>>>>>

these are the people saying that everything is "lovely". the root of all of our problems. the scourge of the land.

Cholmondley_Warner

Contented people are the scourge of the land?

Old boy, you just keep getting better and betterer.

flanneruk

The idea that the redoubtable old bats round here would use a term as chavvy as "lovely" is hysterical.

And the Goverment House servants, batmen and Embassy housekeepers they terrorised when their husbands (or, increasingly, they) were Our Man in wherever would find the idea the bats are easily pleased more hysterical still.

willit

So Flanner's "well heeled" Cotswold neighbours opinions are significantly less valued than an anonymous poster who did not seem to connect a line similar to:

"Sharp's express new potatoes, Creamed spinach, Green salad each at £3.50"

with the concept of "side dishes are extra".

For what it is worth, I find the menu overly fussy and expensive, but this idea that because one poster doesn't like it, it is a universal sondemnation of UK cooking and attitudes amazes me.

daph

Thanks for everyone's imput. I'd like to clear up a few things. We knew the price of the set lunch when we sat down but we wanted a nice lunch. And we knew that it would be just 2 courses without "sides". But we have usually got by with that [ex. a lovely lunch for 20 pounds at L'Escagot] on the other set lunches we've had in London. They don't just set the fish or meat alone on the plate. I knew it was a "National Gallery Restaurant" but it didn't seem to have a name and I didn't know about Crivelli's closing,there were still the lovely murals on the wall. We have been there at least once before and it was OK. I had the cucumber soup-very thin, with a tiny bit of crab. It tasted good. For $99.20 -2 appetizers, 2 mains, VAT, no wine or dessert, tip extra as I recall, we should have had a better meal. Not MORE, no more fishcakes, please. We had the M $ S sandwiches for dinner, by the way. We did not make a contribution to the National Gallery that day,other than having that lunch.

afterall

Well then, Daph,

23 quid for lunch and no donation in the box? My tentative sympathy (cos spending that much for lunch is something I don't understand) has totally evaporated.

Shame on you!

And could someone tell me where the "well-heeled" from the Cotswolds get their money, and should they be shot on sight?

walkinaround

you could sue the restaurant under sharia law.

PatrickLondon

I'm still none the wiser as to whether this was as described on the menu or not.

caroline_edinburgh

"We did not make a contribution to the National Gallery that day,other than having that lunch."

So you did not make a contribution to the gallery at all, then.

I see the New York Met is $20 per person...

dmlove

Not that this has anything at all to do with the original question, but the Met's $20 is a "suggested" contribution, there is no requirement that you pay that amount or anything at all.

adrienne

dmlove - the Met says it's a donation but try not paying the suggested amount and you'll get the argument of your life and be told you have to pay that or you can't get into the museum!