Maze (the restaurant), London

Mr.BG from my uni year spotted the special deal a couple of weeks back: £22.50 for a 3 course meal at Maze. Maze is a one-Michelin-starred restaurant by Gordan Ramsay and it serves "French cuisine with Asian influences".

Since our group is due to catch up anyway so 6 of us headed there for our dinner. The restaurant is located near Bond Street so it was easy for everyone to get to. As you enter the reception area, there are actually 2 bits to the restaurant: the Maze restaurant on the left and the Maze Grill on the right.

The Maze restaurant has a modern design. We walked past a lounge and bar area before getting to our table. It was a Wednesday but the bar was actually quite busy. As far as fine dining goes, the tables aren't actually that great. The tables have plain wooden surface and they are actually not level!

The waiter brought us the menu promptly. There were 3 menus: one for degustation, one for a la carte and one for the special offer.

It was cleared that our group came here for the special offer so we were asked to choose from the following items (one of each course):

Course 1:

• Mackerel tartare, pickled daikon, mackerel pâté and baby radishes
• Salad of beetroot, goat’s curd, red chard and pine nuts

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Course 2:

• Roasted sea bream, cuttlefish rice, herb essence and summer courgettes
• Braised pork cheeks, potato purée, crushed broad beans, mint and chorizo

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Course 3:

• ‘Arctic roll’ and raspberry jelly
• Chilled cherry and mint soup, toasted marshmallow, cherry sorbet

of which I ordered:

1. Mackerel tartare, pickled daikon, mackerel pâté and baby radishes
2. Braised pork cheeks, potato purée, crushed broad beans, mint and chorizo
3. ‘Arctic roll’ and raspberry jelly

The mackerel tartare arrived quite quickly. Unfortunately, it came with a large chunk of cucumber shavings. Mr.AP saved the day and took it off me. Although the mackerel tartare and the pate tasted good, the portion was TINY and I was starting to get worried. Will I be full after the meal?

The second course came after a short interval and it looked much more promising. There were 4 lumps of pork cheek which was braised to a deep brown colour and was really tender. The dish also came with a small pot of potato puree made with a good amount of butter. It was so smooth and creamy! Out of the whole meal, the potato puree stands out the most.

The 'Arctic roll' with raspberry jelly is nice and it reminds me of boarding school. Nostalgia....

The service, however, left a lot to be desired.

The waiter and waitress who served our table appears to be inexperienced. They are a bit clumsy and a bit shy. Perhaps it's because we are on the cheap menu so we don't get the Michelin treatment, which is fair enough (the waiters and waitresses at top restaurant often gets very good pay PLUS tips). Though, one thing that happened towards the end of the meal makes the whole experience unacceptable:

After dessert, we were offered to move to the lounge area. The waiter offered to transfer our drinks over and when we want to carry off our drinks, so we left him to it. He done half of the glasses and then left the rest to another waitress who also served at our table. She came around and told us she has no idea which glass belongs to who, so she just left the riddle for us to solve. We all had the same wine and water so it was indistinguishable for us. In the end, we still weren't sure whether we had our own drink back.

We wanted to have another drink but this incident has put us off drinking at their bar. So we moved off swiftly to the local pub and continue our conversation for a good 1.5 hours!

Overall, the food on offer is pretty good value. I probably won't be going back for their special menu again. Perhaps I will go back to try their tapas style degustation.