Restaurant review - Tempo Mayfair

I have been working solidly for the last few months and was so excited to be going out for a lovely meal with friends on Saturday night.  The voucher we bought online promised exquisite food, buzzy atmosphere and a cocktail menu to make your mouth water!  So after a long day on my feet at work I bathed, groomed and forced my already aching feet into a pair of heels, donned my new Alice by Temperley dress, a bargain purchase from Brand Alley and headed out with the boy for a gastronomic delight.

We arrived at Tempo in Mayfair to find our friends already sat at the table sipping glasses of water rather than at the bar which on the website looked so inviting with elegant velvet chesterfields and tantalizing glasses of martinis.  Also our friends had been there for a good 10 minutes before we arrived (I am always late) and they had still not received their cocktails!  Apparently the Bar that they advertise on the website is private and as a diners spending up-woulds of £300 for the privilege of eating at the restaurant you are not welcome in it!!!!

OK so we are not allowed to drink our cocktails in the bar area, but i am still having one... I order a Rose GT which when it finally arrives is delicious, the menu looks tasty and the voucher that we have purchased allows us a greedy 4 courses and having eaten 1/2 a pack of sushi at lunch I am ready to be really glutenous!  My starter of Calamari was disappointing not only because mine and the boyfriends arrived a good 5 minutes after our friends, but also because it tasted bland.  After the miss hap with the starters and the original delays in taking our orders, food timing was fixed.  The pasta course which followed the starters was delicious, I shared the lobster linguine (when ordering this specific dish it has to be shared) which was delicious but an annoyingly small portion as I could have eaten double.  The meat course was really tasty I opted for the lamb chops which came with a tasty parsnip puree and lentils, but donated 1 and 1/2 chops to the boys, who had ordered the veal another dish you have to share and looked more than disappointed with the size of their portions.  But I was feeling generous and new that I still had pudding to come and I am a pudding girl.

One look at the menu and we are all agreed the chocolate caprese sounds delicious, but when the waitress comes over to take our order she informs us that this is now off the menu, if I said that at this point I was annoyed that would be an understatement, try steam coming out of my ears with frustration!
The restaurant is a few doors down from a Tesco metro which sells butter, eggs, flour and chocolate, give me the ingredients and i will make myself a bloody fondant.  As this option was not viable, I begrudgingly order the panacotta which although tasty was not at all what I wanted so the boyfriend ate mine and his own.

We opt to skip coffee as we just want to get our of the restaurant and find a decent bar to sit and have a cocktail.  The bill arrives and my friend Liz who is an accountant is looking at the bill when it is grabbed from her hands and a new one is given which is double what the previous one was.  I am glad to say that this is when Liz who knows the service industry better than anyone I know went for the jugular.  They had miss calculated our bill twice, the owner who was there chose not to approach us and offer an apology for the dismal service and incorrect bill despite being a witness to:

• Tables coming and going in the time we were sat waiting for our orders to be taken
• 2 starters arriving several minutes after the other 2 
• Our disappointment at not being informed of what was not available on the dessert menu
• The miss calculation of our bills.

Henry Togna the driving force behind Tempo restaurant needs to take a close look at his customer service, attention to detail, price and decor because the only thing that made my evening out enjoyable was the company, and the fact that on leaving Tempo we headed to Polo Bar at the Westbury Hotel.  Where we experienced decent service and atmosphere and were given nibbles which we needed after the disappointment of Tempo!