Antony Bond
Google
Date of eating there was Saturday 18/5/24 We arrived on time, we were offered drinks before or drinks at our table should we wish to go straight to our table. We decided to go through to our table and order our drinks. After an interesting and informative conversation with the sommelier, we choose our wine, and it was an excellent wine.
Our first course arrived quite soon after our order had been taken, which was nice.
The cheese breads and sough dough bread along with salted butter and parsley pesto, was very nicely presented and very tasty.
After that the wheels started to fall off. Firstly we had quite a long wait, then we had the cutlery arrive and explained that our soup course was next and left us with a soup spoon, not to pick fault but the menu clearly stated that we were to expect the pea mousse with fresh asparagus. When the food did arrive it was actually the pea mousse, so we brought to the attention of the server that we had soup spoons, they offered to bring knives and forks straight away, however he was stopped by the head waiter and told “ they could eat it with soup spoons” so I went and asked the head waiter for the correct cutlery. The asparagus was simply too long to manage with a soup spoon and it would have been quite difficult to pick the food up with just a spoon.
We had a quite long wait again, 15 -20 minutes. During that time the table immediately behind us called the waiter over to ask why they had been ignored for 45 minutes since the water had been brought to the table, he made various excuses, to no avail and they got up and left.
The table opposite also called the waiter over and asked why they had not received their second course, after 30 minutes wait.
When our Cherval soup arrived with a soup spoon!! The fennel pieces were to large to even go on the spoon and even though I have a big mouth (according to my wife) there was not a way to manipulate it into my mouth without getting it all over our faces. Quite spoiled the event. The flavour was really delicious. We quietly brought this to the attention of our waiter again. He said that he would inform the kitchen. While we were talking to the waiter we noticed that an other table that had come in after us were now on their desert course, we could not work out what was happening. The other couple had now received their soup.
We now waited just over 30 minutes before our main course arrived which to be fair was very unacceptable.
We had asked for the Roe deer with a side of Smokey purée potatoes. When our main course finally arrived we had to remind them that we ordered the side dish which we had to wait a few minutes for with our mains already on the table. When it arrived we were less than inspired by it, as there was no smokiness to the potatoes at all, in fact it could have been instant mash for the lack of flavour. We left it to one side to be honest as it was not worth eating. My Roe deer was cooked beautifully and presented in a stunning way. However my wives was what can only be described as burnt, not caramelised just burnt.
We would of called the waiter over but we did not see one for a while, So my wife just left it to one side. We ate our meal and once the head waiter came over at the end of our main course we again quietly brought our concerns to their attention. They said that they would bring it to the attention of the kitchen. We waited for our desert, which did not disappoint at all it was a stunning strawberry soufflé. Overall it was a very disappointing experience, with shambolic service from the start to the very end, the quality of the food was at best hit and miss.
Having been looking forward to a wonderful culinary experience by one of the best known chiefs Nigel Haworth.
This could be a bad day, but I fear that the front of house staff are ill trained and we are left wondering what happened in the kitchen.
