Restaurant 625 in Wirral

I love my food and we are always looking for new and upcoming places in the merseyside region. Being European food is a big part of my life and as such we are happy to pay for quality  We stumbled across 625 in West Kirby and thought let's give this a try as it looked beautiful and the menu looked great. That's where the positives ended,  We had to book for a Saturday night via phone as no website or online booking process was available, an inconvenience but not the end of the world. Arriving in the vicinity of the restaurant in West Kirby from Liverpool, parking options are atrocious and we had to park quite a distance from the restaurant and this was early evening,the restaurant is small and well decorated, the high tables and chairs are slightly off putting as not what I'd expect for a fine dining experience !! Stifling no real air movement aircon in the ceiling but wasn't sure as to if it was on or not and if it was, it wasn't working. The food is based on a sharing concept, we ordered a variety of assortment including the tomato salad as who we thought was possibly the owner, was making a lot of noise about it, only for all of the food to be underwhelming, over salted, overpriced and nothing short of what was Gastro pub at best. I'm not sure you can sell Aubergine as gourmet or fine dining. It was also overseasond and fried with dirty oil. It's a first for us to be fair and one that we will not repeat anytime soon, the food and or the restaurant itself as there is far better in that particular area. The food as a whole didn't seem as fresh as we thought it should be, dirty oil. The bill was astronomical, the wine which we purchased was also purchased in other West Kirby establishments at a significantly lesser amount / Hoylake. We were also advised by one of the servers that the Head Chef or the main creator of the menu has now left. This could be why the food wasn't as expected as no control over what's produced / sent out. I guess it's a lesson learnt to never judge a book by its cover. Unfortunately covid has allowed people to dream but the reality can be miles away, shame as it offered potential.