RESTAURANT REVIEW

YORK AND ALBANY
127-129 Parkway, London NW1 7PS
T: 020 7388 3344

We ate at the York and Albany last night. It seems to me that it's a restaurant that has almost (but not quite) got it right.

The first two people we encountered to were unable to find our booking despite them having called me the previous Friday to check we were coming. (Ramsay restaurants are very hot on checking up and if you want a group booking for six or more, you have to sign a contract, give them a credit card number and let them take your children hostage.) After a nail biting few minutes where Big-J anxiously paced the bar asking me what we should do if we couldn't eat there - "eat somewhere else" I said, the bright and smiley Ms Restaurant Manager appeared and told us, wryly, that “you just can't get the staff”. We rejected the first table (right under the air conditioning unit) and were seated at a nice round one although the person on the outside seat was asked to move several times during the evening in order for chairs to be pushed by and for staff to gain access to the wine cupboard.

There were highlights and lowlights.

So, to the highlights: the service was really friendly and very efficient and even amusing – in a good way. The food we ordered was, in general, excellent. The pace of service was also very good – not too fast and not too slow.

The lowlights: (1) The first basket of bread brought to the table was stale. I'm perhaps being unfair, I'd say that it had probably been cut in the morning and left to dry out but by the time it reached us, it was totally inedible (unless you fancy cracking your expensive porcelain crowns) and we had to send it back. Really not what you expect from a Ramsay establishment – must do better. On the upside, they replaced it very quickly with a fresh basket. (2) The wine list is outrageous moving seamlessly from the one or two reasonably priced bottles at around £25 up to very overpriced offerings starting at £50. We estimated a 300% to 400% mark up on most of them. (3) The lighting (absolutely fine when we sat down) was then turned down so low that it became difficult to read the menu. (4) The menu itself was quite difficult. There was really only one starter and two of the main courses that I fancied. (5) My summer salad starter, whilst delicious, was absolutely teeny weeny. A minute, nouvelle cuisine, doll's portion which was a shame because every single tiny morsel tasted completely delicious. I could have done with a portion at least twice the size.

We all opted for the Côtes de boeuf (I told you the menu wasn't easy) and it really was excellent. Perfectly cooked and served with a delicious braised endive, the like of which I've never tasted before. Lovely.

We didn't have dessert, we drank one bottle of reasonably priced wine between 4 (two of our party were on some sort of mad ‘detox’) and at £115 per couple we thought that was pretty expensive for what it was. Because of that, we won't be rushing back.

NatWest, the helpful bank? It just goes on and on - and on

Yes, it's not over till the fat lady sings and she's still only humming.

Last week we discovered that despite the length and breadth of the initial meeting, there were several unsigned documents that needed signing, in triplicate, in blood. These could not be emailed, only faxed or mailed and if faxed, the original had to be sent in the mail too for an original signature.

I don't even have a fax machine anymore. Here in the 21st century, we regular, non-banking folk usually find that email is the quickest, most efficient and cheapest way of moving documents around quickly. We did away with carrier pigeons and faxes some while ago.

Then, someone from the Chief Executive's office eventually called me - that was last Thursday I think - a full ten days after I sent my letter of complaint. By banking standards, that was probably quite fast. He wanted to know if everything was resolved so I made the right noises and explained that their Mike Jones from High Barnet is now looking after us. "I'll give him a call if I can track him down" he said. I offered him Mike Jones's contact details to which the reaction was "thank you so much, you have no idea how difficult it is to get people's contact details within this organisation". I was momentarily speechless. Eventually, I spluttered "what a terrible indictment on your internal systems".

"Yeah, tell me about it" he replied.

Enough said.