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This is very wordy, because it is the text from the letter I wrote to the Chef complaining. The meal cost over $600, which is what prompted my letter. I never even got the courtesy of a letter back. (One time I wrote a letter to Bob Chinn's about a bad experience and believe it or not, Bob himself called me to discuss my letter! There's an owner who actually cares about his customers and it shows!).
This particular time we were getting together with two other couples, one from St. Charles, Illinois and the other from Milwaukee.
The evening started in the bar for four of us. This is where the only good thing of the evening happened. The couple from St. Charles were running a few minutes late. His wife was not feeling well, so she called and asked that we have some bread waiting for her. We asked the bartender and he provided a small appetizer and some bread, which we really appreciated.
When they arrived we moved to our table. The server promptly arrived and explained the menu. The St. Charles couple ordered drinks at that point. About 10 minutes passed and our server came back and asked if we were ready to order. We asked what happened to the drinks; she left to get them. When she returned, we asked if the entire table had to have the tasting menu, she explained "no" as long as everyone understood some of us might be eating while others had no course. That was fine, everyone understood. Two of us ordered the 4 course tasting menu and the other four ordered off the menu. Here's how the rest of the evening unfolded:
When the St. Charles husband received his Brandy Old Fashioned, he noticed it was much smaller than the one another of us was served at the bar. He asked the server and she went to check. She came back and said that even though the glasses were different sizes, the amount in them was the same. So, he did a test, he poured his into the Milwaukee wife's empty glass and it was about half. We mentioned it to the server later and she had no comment.
When giving our order, we ordered another round of drinks for a few of us.
Appetizers delivered to everyone. One onion tart looked like it slid across the plate; all the sauce was smeared. Granted that's a small thing, but the presentation was not good. At this point, asked where our drinks were as 10-15 minutes had passed since we gave our order.
For the two tasting menus, the hot fish course was delivered.
Next, main course was delivered for the two tasting menus by one server and one main course was served to another by someone else. It took several minutes for the other 3 to get their main course. At this point the St. Charles couple realized they did not get the salads they ordered and mentioned this to the server. She offered to take back the main courses and bring the salad, they said forget it. When my main course was delivered, I ordered another glass of wine, told to the young man who delivered my food.
One of the lobster dishes was cold and if our server had checked in with us right away, we would have mentioned it to her, but we never saw her and our friend decided to eat it anyway.
10 minutes later, our server came to apologize for the salads not showing. At that time, I mentioned to her that I had ordered a glass of wine. She said she would check into it.
We're all done eating, a bus person is clearing our plates, so I mentioned that I still did not have my wine. She said she would find out. She came back and said that they can't figure out who I ordered it from. We told her to forget it.
Dessert for the tasting menu is brought out for the two of us. Others at our table wondered why we were not offered coffee first or why any of the other four were not offered dessert.
As we are finishing our dessert a bus person comes by and asks if we want coffee. We say no, we just want to leave, so we ask for our check.
The other bus person shows up with the wine we told her to forget. We told her we didn't want the wine, we just want our check.
Our original server comes over and asks if anyone wants dessert! We could not believe it! This was a good 15-20 minutes from the time the tasting menu desserts were served to us.
So, we were presented with a dilemma. To tip or not to tip? We decided to tip 10% because we did not want the bus people (anyone other than our main server) to be penalized.
As we were leaving, the hostess asked how everything was. We said terrible and her only comment was "sorry to hear that". She didn't ask for details or anything.
We eat out about 4 times a week and I have to say this was one of the worst experiences in a fine-dining restaurant we've ever had. Prices are as high as some of the finest restaurants in the Milwaukee and Chicago area and I have to say what we got for the price we paid was terrible. It was as if the server never communicated with the kitchen and the tasting menu was not coordinated with the other diners at the table. I felt like we ordered from two different kitchens and no one talked to the bar at all! And there would be no sighting of our server for a half hour at a time.
This is actually the first time in my life where I feel like asking for a refund from a restaurant. It was an embarrassment that we'd been bragging about Gilbert's and finally got our friends to make the drive, and it turned out to be a disastrous evening. It makes me so uncomfortable that our friends had to pay so much for such an experience. It was a rare opportunity for them to be out for an evening away from their combined 8 kids and to spend so much for a meal.
I should mention that other than one of the lobsters being cold, the food was very good, but in the end that doesn't matter when the service was so poor. The entire experience is what we're willing to pay for, not just good food.
Again, the worst part of the experience is the fact we contacted the management of the restaurant twice and never received a response. From other reviews we have found on the net, we see this is a pattern. The chef is good, but he has very poor management running his front of house.
http://www.gilbertsrestaurant.com/
