Yesterday was a special occasion and as such we treated ourselves to a trip to London to shop and see a show. We decided to visit Battersea and Gordon Ramsey's Street Pizza for lunch.
We opted for the pizza option and were told we could have a variety of slices with 3 veggie and 3 meat options- perfect for 1 veggie and 1 omnivore we thought! It's delivered in a table service buffet style, where the server rotates around the tables placing slices on your plate when ready from a large wooden platter.
After a wait we were offered our first slice- a meat option which I politely declined reiterating I was vegetarian. My husband ate his pizza whilst I waited... and waited. A new platter came round- another meat option. Again I declined and politely confirmed I was vegetarian. Only then did the server go over to the kitchen and shout so loudly for the entire restuarant to hear 'We've got a vegetarian'. Squirming a little in my seat with a sense of my dietary choice being a bother, I politely waited and waited whilst my husband ate his choices.
Eventually the server threw me a smile as if to say here's you veggie option, and she started to rotate around the tables serving pizza from the freshly prepared platter- platter in one hand and the pizza serving slice in the other. When she got to our table she lifted a slice of pepperoni pizza onto my husband's plate then used the exact same utensil still covered in meat oil and debris to lift my aubergine pizza slice. I then looked at the platter and saw that both pizzas were sharing the same platter with no barrier such that the oils and flavours from the meat options were freely oozing over the overlapped vegetarian pizza slices. Thinking this had to be an oversight I calmly mentioned that a separate serving utensil should be used for vegetarian and meat options and that vegetarian dishes should not be placed on the same platters as meat choices and certainly not butted up to each other and even overlapping. Expecting the waitress to be apologetic and recognise the error I was disappointed for her to giggle and say 'oh I'm vegetarian too and I took your slice from here' pointing to the slice beside the one significantly overlapping as opposed to merely touching. No matter how much we spoke about cross contamination she really could not see that there was an issue. Imagine if I had a serious allergy or religious beliefs meaning I avoided certain foods?Please tell me I was being reasonable to expect vegetarian dishes to be served separate to meat ones and to expect higher standards from a restuarant affiliated with a celebrity and acclaimed chef who is known for turning around failing restaurants??