Venue spotlight: Brasserie Zédel
I like French cuisine & I like technology. So visiting Brasserie Zédel to test out our Pay & Go solution wasn’t exactly the hardest day’s work I’ve ever done. It’s a tough job, & I gladly, & smugly, had to do it. Like all Corbin & King restaurants, Brasserie Zédel receives consistently rave reviews, so expectations were high.
Having lived in France for a while, I’m one of those annoying people that insists on pronouncing everything on the menu in an exagerrated, & unashamedly pretentious French accent. It also means I have high standards when it comes to French restaurants in the UK. But the Brasserie Zédel dining room could never fail to impress even the snobbiest of Francophiles. Just yards from the tourist Mecca that is Piccadilly Circus, immaculately dressed waiters shuffle beneath chandeliers & gold-lined pillars, placing folded napkins & oven-warm bread with the panache & je ne sais quoi you only get in a place like this. Parisian chic never goes out of fashion.
The menu is packed with French favourites, so it’s perhaps a little off-brand that I opted for the ravioli. (I still tried, and failed, to pronounce this in an Italian accent.)
Despite crossing the culinary Alps into Italy, I wasn’t disappointed. In classic French brasserie style, it’s all about simple but rich flavours, with fresh pasta smothered in a gloriously butter-laden sauce & adorned with a handful of wilted spinach leaves.
My colleague went for a more classically French option. Yet again, her steak haché was a lesson in simplicity – when you’ve got good meat, a portion of chips & a carafe of French white, what more could you ask for in life?
This dish comes with a peppercorn sauce, & although I didn’t order the steak myself I managed to steal a chip to mop up some of it up. If the steak was half as good as the sauce, my colleague chose well.
Adding technology into a venue as timeless as this could seem a little incongruous. But as with everything else at Brasserie Zédel, they’ve introduced OrderPay’s Pay & Go solution with signature sophistication. There’s no in-your-face stickers or posters here, but QR codes are placed both on a chic silver plaque on the table, & at the bottom of the bill.
I scanned the QR code on the table & was immediately taken to our bill. Here, I was presented with the option to pay the full amount by card or Google Pay, & to split the bill. I paid my share, & sent a link to my colleague to pick up the rest. (Scanning the same QR code would have also taken her to the updated bill.)
So having paid in a matter of seconds, we were on our way. My colleague left annoyed by my incessant French accent. I left content, safe in the knowledge I will be returning very soon. À bientôt, Brasserie Zédel.
