Hello all. I'm a recent joinee to the eGullet community and I feel a little bad that my first post in this forum should be a rant, but nonetheless, here goes. I ate at Thornton's at the end of last summer and it was really a rather poor experience. The food was good, and to be honest the room doesn't bother me at all (even though we were in the graveyard section) but the service wavered between merely adequate and abysmal. The first time I ate there the service was perfect: friendly, attentive, helpful and efficient without being overbaring at all. It was one of the best meals I ever had in terms of the marriage of food and experience. Since then it's been downhill (not that I have been all that often, but the fact remains). On our most recent visit, having been seated we were left for a significant amount of time without menus, an offer of an aperitif, or indeed any acknowledgement of our presence whatsoever. It was extremely difficult even to get the attention of a passing waiter, which stunned me at a restaurant of this calibre. When we eventually managed to order some drinks and were handed some menus, I started to relax and thought things would probably look up from there. That proved false. While the food service from then on was mediocre (3 of the 4 of us served and forced to wait for the last guests dish to appear, for example) the sommelier in particular I thought very poor. She was totally without recommendation at the beginning of the meal, despite my prompting of the sort of thing we might be looking for. In fact, I got the distinct impression that she felt superior to everyone in the room and couldn't be bothered serving such hoi polloi as ourselves. During the meal, it was virtually impossible to get any attention, and at one point all 4 of us at the table were left with empty glasses for a long period. Our wine had been left on the other side of the room, and I didn't feel it appropriate to walk over to collect it, but towards the end of the meal I was virtually forced to do exactly that. The final straw came when we ordered off the cheese trolley and I told the sommelier we would like to accompany it with some port. She said "okay" and started walking away, and when I called after her to ask what ports were available, she said she didn't know, because she was new. I'm sorry, but if I'm spending 800 Euro on a meal for 4 people I expect better than this. The meal was made extra disappointing by my memory of past glories there. Prior to the night in question, I had spent a long time raving about the restaurant to our guests, and it was quite embarrassing to find myself apologising to them repeatedly. I may return to Thornton's for lunch sometime to see if things have improved, but from what we experienced, serious changes in attitude and/or personnel are required to restore this restaurant to it's former lofty position. Rant over, I'll try to be more positive in future posts! Si