Speight's Ale House Hamilton — Restaurant in Hamilton

This place has all the makings of a great pub - a large indoor area, plenty of TV’s for watching ‘the game’, a large bar and even a reasonably sized outdoor area. But it just doesn’t seem to pull it together. The menu is electronic. We ordered the lamb shank and ribs but were advised the ribs had run out (the place was near empty at 6.30pm) so ordered the fish n chips. The fish n chips were a disaster. The fish was completely tasteless and the batter was so thick and crispy that if it were sweet I might have been eating churros. I’m usually a big eater but I couldn’t force myself to eat the fish. The lamb shank was better, a good size and the gravy was nice but lamb shank should be soft meat, almost falling off the bone. This, we struggled to cut with the standard dinner knife. Dessert was ice cream sundae. It was literally a scoop of vanilla ice cream covered in whipped cream with some sweet sauce squirted on top. For $18 I expected much better. Service was friendly and polite, but incredibly slow, dinner took over 30 min from when we ordered and even the sundae took about 15 minutes. Two mains, one non-alcoholic beer and one cocktail plus the $18 Sundae...

the service alone was enough for the 5 star rating staff were so friendly , multiple team members come to check if we needed anything else and also checked in about how our food was etc

The tablet service was impressive , we have them in Auckland but yet to come across one that we could pay from the table !! It was super easy to use and was a great way to check what we had added and total costs and overall was a really efficient way to dine in and allows staff to tend to other jobs

The food was tasty !! Very generous potion sizes and well presented , I’d say you get great value for money with the amount of food they serve was happy with how fast the food arrived too

The venue was clean , well organised and had the coolest chairs / bar stools , enjoyed the fact it was nice and quiet in the dining area music was at a good level and overall will be saving this place to re visit when we next come down

Thanks so much would...

Waitress looked away while speaking with seating instructions. I'm deaf so didn't hear. Told her, she apologised then did it again. Young inexperienced not her fault but untrained by Speights ale house obviously.

Twice cooked pork belly was so tough I sent it back. Report back from kitchen was that is how they cook it.

I lost it, said I was 64 and both cooked and eaten dozens of them and it is not how they are.....no apology nor offer to select something else.

Mean time wife had eaten a lovely fish & salad meal. I pinched some fish it was great.

I had to ask for menu again.....ahhh....and ordered one lamb shank. Bloody great and could only eat half so doggy bagged rest for breakfast.

No offer of apology from matre de or compensation. I had a beer & 2 wines so thought at least the beer might have been taken off as apology.....

There's a lot of other eating places in Hamilton to try before we'll be back....that's a big...