Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s three restaurants at Gatwick Airport have amassed hundreds of negative online reviews from customers, who have labelled the food “foul” and slammed slow service.
The three sites – Jamie Oliver's Diner, Jamie's Italian and Jamie's Coffee Lounge – have all received unfavourable online reviews, with Jamie Oliver’s Diner (found in the South Terminal) having racked up 330 ‘terrible’ ratings from review site TripAdvisor.
The complaints range from badly cooked food at breakfast through to slow service at dinner. A customer called Paula slammed the breakfast menu, writing: “We will never use the restaurant again; there are so many other options now at Gatwick. Avoid if you are wishing for a nice breakfast.”
Jamie's Coffee Lounge is one of three Jamie Oliver branded sites at Gatwick
Elsewhere, another customer labelled a burger from the restaurant as “foul”, commenting that the unwelcome taste still lingered “five hours later” when they went to bed. In another furious review, a customer claimed to have been sold stale pastries from one of Oliver’s airport sites, writing “Shame on you Jamie, this café is doing you no favours”. High prices also proved a stickler for unhappy guests, with one customer calling the Jamie’s Italian branch at the airport an “overpriced Whetherspoon” after spending £40 on breakfast for two.
It hasn’t been an easy time for Oliver, who suffered the collapse of his UK restaurant empire last year, resulting in the closure of his Barbecoa and Fifteen brands, as well as the loss of 1,000 jobs. However, the three Gatwick Airport sites were saved when hospitality operator SSP took ownership of them. Despite the change in ownership, it seems that customers are still being left dissatisfied.
Jamie Oliver's Diner has been criticised for its "foul" burgers
Regarding the barrage of negative reviews, a spokesperson for SSP UK told the Daily Mail: “We are committed to providing our customers with a great experience when they dine with us, and we would like to apologise to anyone who felt our high standards had not been met during their visit.”
“Customer feedback is very important to us, and we have been looking into the detail of each complaint so that we can continue to improve our offer to our customers.”
In other chef news, Gordon Ramsay is rumoured to be making some big changes to his restaurant group.