The Royal — Restaurant in St. Martin

Visited The Royal yesterday for Sunday dinner as I had heard great reviews about the place.Only to be disappointed.

The Sunday menu consists of a mushroom dish,pork belly (which personally seems an odd cut for a Roast dinner meat) and a sirloin of beef. There was alternatives to Sunday dinner,such as fish & chips,goan curry,pork ribs,sea bass or a burger. Which specifically going out for a Sunday dinner,I was planning on having a roast dinner. So myself and husband settled on the sirloin of beef and seeing the other tables beef being brought of thought the meat looked rather nice.

We arrived for our booking at 3:30pm,when the waitress came over to take our order we were informed they had no sirloin of beef left.So would have to chose something else,when your only option was pork belly. Now you would have assumed a price difference between a sirloin of beef and pork belly would be noticeable,it isn't! It costs £17.95 for the sirloin and £17,25 for pork belly. We were not the only disappointed patrons of the pub due to this,the table next to us,the husband ordered garlic bread because he too had come for a Sunday dinner and wanted the sirloin and agreed the pork belly was an odd and massively less superior option.

When the food arrived we asked to see a wine list,but by time anyone returned to us,we had eaten what we could of the meal,so had no wine (my husband was starving and not very picky,so ate the lot) Now let's talk about the food.....a small chunk of pork belly which was ok,cooked reasonably well but not alot of actual meat that was sat on what was supposed to be mash but had the texture of pure or even packet mash potatoes, with 3 small heads of broccoli stems,3 small half green beans,3 miniscule roast(but tasted more fried) potatoes,what was described as a carrot and swede crush,which was more like a bright orange mush. Then the most offensive,disgusting blob of brown something on the plate.There was supposed to be apple sauce with the pork,so I assumed it was some sort of pureed apple (it was not!!) The taste was indescribable,the smell not much better and to top it of,it was ice cold. My husband asked the waitress what it was and she had no idea so went to ask the kitchen.She returned sheepishly and told us it was a Cauliflour pure.I have never seen a Cauliflour pure that was brown,why was it on my plate and why was it ice cold? There were many more people ordering food after us,so to run out of beef by 3:30pm seems poor show. Maybe there evening menu is better but we were very disappointed in there Sunday dinner offering and will not...

We booked a table for 6 people at 5:30pm. Just to note — when we arrived, there were only three other tables occupied, so the restaurant wasn’t busy.

After being seated, it took 15 minutes before anyone came to take our drinks order, and then another 20 minutes for the drinks to arrive. When they did, we asked what the soup of the day was and were told it was Tomato and Basil — so five of us ordered it.

Over 20 minutes later, the soup arrived, but it clearly wasn’t Tomato and Basil. When we asked, we were told it was actually Carrot and Orange. The waiter then explained that Tomato and Basil stops being served at 4:30, which we had never been told — clearly showing poor communication between staff. We were made to feel like the mistake was ours and felt pressured to just accept the soup, even though no one enjoyed it and most of it was left untouched.

We then waited over 30 minutes for our mains, which were okay — nothing special. During the meal, we ordered another round of drinks which took 15 minutes to arrive.

Finally, we ordered dessert, which took over 25 minutes to be served — and by this time, we were the only people left in the restaurant and it looked like they were closing up.

In total, it took 2 hours and 30 minutes to get through three courses, in a restaurant that was barely serving. Overall, a very disappointing experience, especially as this was a place I used to go to often as a child. It’s a real shame to see how much it’s...

Absolutely dreadful service, we were there for two and a half hours for two courses, asked for baked beans instead of peas and got given runner bean and told to close my eyes and add sauce. I got a cheese board for dessert and the waiter forgot the chutney I asked and he said 'it doesn't come with any' I told him to check the menu and he apologised and they came back and gave me and I quote 'picallily and Branston chutney'! Which of course was just Branston pickle ! The bill came to 50£ which topped of a crap meal.

The royal used to be great and has sadly dramatically...