Came to Gaucho Covent Garden for my husbands 50th birthday. Food was great, crab starter exceptional. Sadly no mention of my husbands birthday even though I’d sent a message beforehand.
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Company details
- #9 of 11 best companies in Internet marketing service
Written by the company
SquareMeal started over 30 years ago, as a guide to the best restaurants in the City of London. Since then, we have grown to encompass the whole UK, as well as private dining, weddings and parties. Now, we are the UK’s leading restaurant guide, with millions of diners using our site every month. We publish articles, guides, ‘best’ lists, reviews, round-ups, foodie news and more.
Contact info
250 Kennington Lane, SE11 5RD, London, United Kingdom
- 020 7582 0222
- support@squaremeal.co.uk
- www.squaremeal.co.uk
No recent history of asking for reviews
This company hasn't invited customers recently, so reviews may not be representative
Replied to 10% of negative reviews
Typically takes over 1 month to reply
How this company uses Trustpilot
See how their reviews and ratings are sourced, scored, and moderated.
Vouchers
Vouchers. Awful activation process, awful redemption process.. very misleading on the participating restaurants. If you live outside of London forget it. If you plan on collecting useless points from Opentable bookings you might be okay.. anything else forget it
Difficult and frustrating
Difficult and frustrating. Will never use again.
If I could rate it as a minus I would
If I could rate it as a minus I would! Have contacted them 4 times. No response. I got given a £70 voucher and I have tried about 30 to 40 restaurants listed on their website and no one accepts this voucher. Terrible, terrible TERRIBLE. Never ever EVER purchase anyone a voucher.
Where to spend vouchers?
Why is it that the restaurants that take Squaremeal vouchers are in this thread below and NOT on the Squaremeal website (at least, nowhere obvious)? And what's their relationship to OpenTable exactly since many of my bookings say "powered by OpenTable"?
Fern restaurant in East Croydon absolutely fantastic
Just been for lunch at the new restaurant in Croydon called Fern. It is at the bottom of the big black tower block opposite East Croydon station. The food was absolutely fantastic, best I have had in a while and I am used to eating in restaurants. The wine list is also really good with unusual wines by the glass. It is about time we had a restaurant of this calibre in Croydon. Staff lovely and friendly too. Would recommend.
DO NOT purchase a voucher
SquareMeal vouchers are an absolute joke - the list of participating restaurants is extremely limited and this is not clear on the face of the voucher.
I received a voucher (small amount)
I received a voucher (small amount), I have emailed restaurants to see if I can use it, several have replied NO, even though they are listed on Squaremeal website, I’m glad I did email, so embarrassing if I turned up and the venue said we don’t use these vouchers, how is this company allowed to do this? Some restaurants are permanently closed. Please avoid website, if I could give zero star I would.

Reply from SquareMeal
My go-to site to find the best restaurants
It has become my go-to site when looking for the very best restaurants. Their 100 best in Uk is simply top. I have been to only some of them, and their description was on point. I've only made a few bookings through the site, and had no problem.
Fantastic food and 5star service
Fantastic food and 5star service, cant wait for the new wine menu
Bad Squaremeal booking.
I booked a meal at a restaurant called Common in the merseyside area @ 18:45 on 19/01, got a mail from Squaremeal to say all was booked and confirmed.
What checks do Squaremeal carry out ? When we arrived the restaurant was closed !
Cheers Squaremeal, won't be using again.
Avoid purchasing or using a voucher as…
Avoid purchasing or using a voucher as the website is misleading. You will struggle to find anyone who accepts these vouchers, even though the website lists them.
Very disappointed with a present given to us. Cost us much more than the voucher in the end as we had to fork out the cost of the bill when the restaurant (listed on their website) did not know anything about Squaremeal.
Do any restaurants actually accept their vouchers?
Received a SquareMeal voucher and booked a restaurant that I found on the website, got there and turned out they don't take SquareMeal vouchers. I guess that was my mistake for not understanding that the bulk of the website is a directory and not places that accept their vouchers. Second attempt I made sure that I was looking at the right selection of restaurants, and made sure I said that I had a SquareMeal voucher in the reservation. The restaurant said that they don't do any vouchers, that they never have, and couldn't accept it. Two very embarrassing experiences, not going to bother trying again so unfortunately will be going to waste. Do not recommend!
DO NOT USE
Do not use! I thought carefully about which company to use to purchase a restaurant voucher as a gift and chose Square Meal because I thought it had a good reputation. I wish I hadn’t! The money came out of my account straight away but the recipient did not receive the voucher. Despite repeated emails, no one at Square Meal responded to my problem. 10 days later they responded to my problem (actually by this point I had asked for a refund and that too was ignored) by sending the voucher to the recipient. NO apology and NO explanation. What a terrible service and why would anyone bother with this sort of stress. AVOID!!! After this experience i would not use them for anything.
This company writes fake reviews to…
This company writes fake reviews to force restaurants to advertise with it. Do not trust them
Invaluable resource
You can look up restaurants/bars by location, facilities & cuisine. When you live in London (as I do) its great to have somewhere reliable to look. Only problems are a lot of restaurants/bars are missing & ALL reviews are good which is just not possible.
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