Kolae in London

This meal was such a mixed bag. On the one hand, the food was delicious, the service (while we were eating at least!) was excellent, the restaurant is beautiful, and the atmosphere was great. However, there was completely unnecessary friction introduced at the end of an otherwise excellent meal, because this restaurant was unable to deal with a gift voucher that wasn't the exact amount of food and drink that we consumed during the meal. We received a voucher of £125 as a gift, and our meal for two people cost us £95. When we sat at our table, we alerted our server to the fact that we'd be redeeming a gift voucher for the meal. She said that would be fine. After we finished eating, we asked for the bill and said we'd be redeeming the aforementioned gift voucher. At this point, the server brought in her supervisor to deal with it, and things started going south. The supervisor took a photograph of the voucher and went away. Then he came back and said they cannot give us the balance (£30ish) back, and would we like to order anything else - after we had finished eating a lot of food including dessert. We refused and asked for the balance, either in the form of another voucher or cash. He asked if we could order some wine instead. We refused and asked for the balance, either in the form of another voucher or cash. He then said he will see what he can do and went away. He came back to our table after another 10 mins and said that he cannot generate a voucher for us and we have to use the £125 to pay for a meal that costs £95. We refused and asked to speak to a manager. He went away. Then the manager, Damien, came to our table and repeated what the previous guy said and asked us if we were sure we wouldn't just accept a bottle of wine for the remainder. We refused and asked for the balance, either in the form of another voucher or cash. We also explained that we really enjoyed our meal and we'd like to come back with more family, and also use up the rest of the voucher (and provide them with return customers). He said he understands and went away again, and finally came back with a hand written card explaining the balance of the gift card to be redeemed at a later point and included his name on the card. We thanked him for his help in resolving the issue. Phew! However, this is in my opinion a huge flaw in their voucher system and it was somewhat lazy customer service to keep asking us to accept the option that would be easy for them rather than us. If this restaurant only honoured vouchers that used the full amount on the voucher, then that should have been made clear at the point of purchase, as well as at the point of arriving, before we ordered food, and on the voucher terms and conditions. It introduces unnecessary friction to the customer journey. Kudos to Damien for finally finally resolving this but I also suspect it's because we stuck to our guns and insisted over the course of the 20 mins or so that it took to resolve this completely unn...