We have just returned from Father's day lunch...
I used to be a regular here when the head chef was Tom and they had a super
Maître d'.
Visited again after they both departed & the place was shocking, food was average but the service...was laughable. This was a few years ago.
Should have been slightly worried when we were able to get a table for fathers day an hour before lunch, when everywhere else was booked up. It was a last minute change by us to go here, and i was comforted to be told by a colleague that this restaurant had once again been fit for purpose!! Wow how wrong this was.
The service was not fit for service, the food not much better. Our table was on the mezzanine level where they used to have a cool bar. The tables were barely made up, very basic.
We ordered some drinks. My daughter ordered a "cloudy" apple juice. Whilst waiting for the drinks to arrive i asked if we could have some bread. The waitress asked what type of bread we wanted, so i asked what choices did we have, which she replied they just had one type of bread, kind of odd question then.
The drinks arrived, the apple juice was not "cloudy" the waitress didn't seem to know the difference. When we explained she said this was all they had. So we asked for an alternative drink. When this arrived my daughter asked if she could have a straw, to which the waitresses reply was "oh well i will have to go all the way downstairs again". As it was fathers day and i didn't want to ruin being with my family i decided to bite my lip and let this go.
Bread arrived. We had no side plates to put this on so we had to use our napkins. Bread was rock solid.
Starters arrived, three of which were soup. No soup spoons on table. We asked for this, to then only be given two spoons, which we pointed out.
Main course a disaster. They waitress blamed the "printer' for the kitchen not getting the order. When food did arrive, this was average not great but also not a disaster.
My son (aged 26) ordered another orange juice, they brought him orange squash.
It seemed to us that the staff were untrained and not motivated to give a good service. Totally understand hospitality venues are struggling to recruit, but bringing in second rate staff just doesn't wash as they will not get returning customers if they have a similar experience.
For us, we will not return again, i suspect the restaurant will not survive under current owners / management, so we will wait for replacements before considering again. It's a great shame as the building is or was beautiful.
It would seem we are not the only ones to have had a poor experience recently, and the norm is for the restaurant to ignore or at least not reply to negative reviews, which in itself speaks volumes about the lack of interest by the owners.
RIP DaffodilMore