Bacchanalia Mayfair

Wonderful vibe with Damien Hirst's sculptures cantilevered over the airspace above the main dining area. Truly impressed with the restaurant interior design at every corner. Food was good considering the interior, and the price point was fair. Dessert was mediocre though. However, service was chaotic from the online booking system. I attended dinner as I booked online, but I was charged the cancellation fee of £50 the following day on the same visa card. I tried to contact the restaurant by phone, and there was silence when the call was picked up or it hung up after the voice recording. Then I sent a messgae as feedback via their website, and eventually, the auto email reply showed they actually had an email address that could reach them. To cut the story short, they finally replied to me by email. It took another 2 days to receive the refund after their email confirmation. I suppose they are dealing with online bookings and no shows as a normal part of running the restaurant, so this fault shows that they are not verifying the booking and not taking customers' payment details with care, i.e. charging customers fairly. If they believe/suspect I did not show up as my booking, they should at least give me a courtesy call to verify before charging me the penalty.

Bacchanalia is extravagantly decorated with three gigantic sculptures above your head. Instagrammable restaurant hence there were many diners vacuously post for photos for their social media. Our waiter was dressed in Romanesque service apparel. It’s been opened for a long while so service should have been better. Service charge was 14.5% plus a cover charge of £2 in addition, and we were rush. 5 min after desserts were served, a bill was placed on a table. 5 min later the server came with the machine. The restaurant was 25 full so when questioned why was such a rush as we did not finish our desserts yet, the server defensively said yes, this table was reserved without any care that he just served us the desserts and no apologies. We had different water, they kept topping it up like they do but mixing up sparkling and still. The Ivy’s service with affordable price is much more refined and well trained. We felt bullied out and we were a group and there was less than 2 hours.

In general we liked everything very much! When we arrived, we were invited to the bar to wait for our table (we had a reservation), but we had to wait about 30 minutes, which was not pleasant, but the atmosphere at the bar was amazing, the music was just incredible! Thanks to the DJ!!! Then we were escorted to our table, all the waiters were polite, the atmosphere of the main bar was also great, but the live music was too loud and it was difficult for me to hear the people we were talking to. The food was prepared very quickly. All the dishes were incredible, especially the thank you da sea bass I had, it was incredibly fresh and all the components of the dish complemented each other. It was my birthday and they brought me a compliment from the restaurant, which was nice. The dessert we ordered was also very tasty. To be honest, I didn't really like the cocktails, but it depends on your taste I think. There were three of us and each of us left £90, which is quite a large sum, but the atmosphere and experience are worth it. We had less than two hours at the table and were asked to leave because of the next reservation. Overall, I recommend experiencing the atmosphere, but I don't think I would visit this place again.