Bath - Vaults - Marc Joss Review

Having visited James Street Nando's two days before, it was time to check out the newer restaurant before heading back to London. This is a very interesting Nando's with lots of unique features but my Friday lunchtime experience was overshadowed by some negligent staff and a first for me at Nando's: drips coming down from the ceiling to interrupt the meal.

On arrival, the manager welcoming guests in did not see me as I was standing to the right of the queue for orders (poor restaurant layout) which is only 3 or 4 metres from the entrance so newcomers waiting for a table and Nandoers waiting to order get merged into one. Two other groups arrived after me and were offered a table before me so when I finally made my presence felt, it was concluded that it would be better to go and come back in 5 or 10 minutes, not a good start.

That is what we did and at least the table was ready when I returned to the restaurant with SVC. Manager Simon (whose name badge claimed he was Charlotte) was keen to explain the unique features of the restaurant and how very little Nando's font is used (no Nando's story for example) in order to maintain the prestige of the vaults.

By this time, the restaurant was not as busy so there was only a short queue to order and then we took our seats at table 26 after attempting to to retrieve my usual extra extra hot sauce and failing. It was the smallest supply of sauces I've ever seen. There were about 6 bottles in total when we went to collect, how could that be possible?! Luckily when the food came, a Nandoca brought some extra extra hot sauce over to me in a plastic container and the food did look and taste great although my breast was missing the charred, delicious end of the wing so no more than a 3 for food! The biggest problem was about to arrive however. As we tucked into our chicken, SVC felt a drop of water land on her and we both looked up at the high, arched ceiling with confused faces. We already knew that the original opening of the restaurant had been delayed a couple of months due to dripping from the ceiling so it was definitely not a new problem! We thought we'd let one drop pass by but as soon as a second, ice cold landed on SVC, it was decided that we had to move table. We told the nearest Nandoca who cleaned a table nearby and told us we could move over there. That would have been fine if we'd just sat down, didn't have a jumper and a coat each as well as drinks and food! We had to do two journeys each to take everything over and no Nandoca offered to help, where's the Nando's spirit?! We gobbled up the remainders quickly and couldn't wait to leave.

James Street Nando's is definitely a more spacious and pleasant restaurant. I'm highly unlikely to ever return to Bath Vaults Nando's.