Quill & Taper at Four Oaks — Restaurant in Birmingham

My husband booked online a table of 4 and when we turned up at our reserved time we waited behind a few big parties and a lady showed us to the table. At the same time we were seated, a table for 6 were seated in the same section, then us, and a couple opposite a few minutes later. The male waiter served the couple first for drinks, took an order from the table of six. Later on after about 10 minutes, he apologised for delay and took our drinks order. About 15minutes later the table with the couple on had been served their drinks and their meal, table of 6 had their drinks and their meal had began to be served and we finally received our drinks. We didn’t feel special at all. The waiter always apologised each interaction with us but still the inadequate service continued. It then took 40 more minutes before our food arrived, the couple had settled their bill by this time and the table of 6 had almost finished their meals. I ordered a halloumi and pepper kebab and I received my food first and a waitress almost threw it at me saying chicken kebab. I thought she had got it wrong so didn’t question and picked at the skinny fries until the other 3 meals arrived because the fries were barely hot and rock hard. A few minutes later the other 3 meals arrived and we finally tucked in. To my despair, I pulled apart part of the kebab and discovered chicken!! I do not eat meat so I alerted a young waitress of the chicken and she apologised and took it back to the kitchen. About 5 minutes later she returned with the same kebab saying that I was wrong, it was in fact halloumi and obvious pieces of halloumi had been replaced. She then expected me to be satisfied with this. I wasn’t eating that, so I requested that the whole thing was made again. So she said flippantly enjoy the chips (that were hard, cold and inedible at this point) and went back off to the kitchen. My son ordered a further drink of cola. I waited a further 10minutes, by which time my party had finished their meals, so they waited for me. My freshly made meal was what I should’ve had half an hour ago. During the time, I ate the meal the cola failed to turn up. A lady whom I thought was the manager swooped down the stairs and said is everything ok when I was eating the revised meal alone to which I replied it is now, and she swooped back up the stairs without questioning me. Once I finished my meal, I just wanted to leave, so my husband went to the till to settle the bill to which the male waiter apologised yet again. We asked for the cola to be cancelled, it had been going warm and flat on the bar for a while and the manager cancelled it but did not ask why we wanted to go without the drink. In summary, to say we were truly disappointed with the service and quality of our experience was a significant understatement!!! I am sorry but we shall not return because we would prefer to spend our £80 on an alternative quality...

Booked a table for 2 at 7pm. Got there on time, had to wait a while to be seated, the young man who served us named Adam was fantastic. But everything else from there onwards was terrible, we ordered our food a starter and two main meals, having been a few times before we were looking forward to the great food that we know they produce. The starter liver pate came out and the bread was minute and the garnish was just plonked on top of the pate. Not how it is usually served. When the mains came out, (hunters chicken) the chicken was plonked on top of the chips, there was no barbecue sauce on any of the meals, my wife had ordered skinny fries after she was told there was no sweet potato fries and her meal had chunky chips on it instead of skinny fries, on my plate the salad was just a whole gem lettuce sat on the side of the plate. We informed Adam about the state of the meals, he was very apologetic and took the meals away to sort them out ,they came back with a little bit of barbecue sauce on and we had to ask for extra sauce. We also had ordered a portion of onion rings which we had to ask for, Adam came back and apologetically told us the kitchen had forgotten to do them and we would have some in a couple of minutes, when the onion rings came out, I tasted one and it had been over cooked in old fat and also looked disgusting, I called Adam over and asked him to taste the onion rings which he did and agreed with me straight away that it tasted of old fat, Adam apologised for everything that had gone wrong with our meals, I questioned him on why the meals were no were up to the standard that we have had on our previous visits, he told us that the kitchen was under staffed with one trainee chef who was still very new to the company and the head chef having to run everything, Adam was the only person running the table service, which he deserved a medal for or a good bonus at least. He assured us that he would make sure that everything got reported back to the management and he could only apologise once again, Adam is a staff member that I would make sure you keep hold of and sorted the rest out , we hope our next visit will be back to the standard that we...

First of all I would like to say that our server Adam was excellent, however, our experience was let down on multiple levels.

We were a party of 9 made up of adults and children, with my son being a wheelchair user and we were out celebrating my daughters birthday.

We were sat in the dining area which could only be accessed by steps meaning my son had to enter through a fire door, and when he needed to visit the toilet, he had to leave the building and re-enter through the main door. Which meant that he, and everyone sat near the door, needed to put on their coats when a visit to the toilet was required.

The disabled facilities were also not separate so my 17 yr old so had to be taken into the womens toilet by his female carers, and the cubicle was on the small size for a wheelchair user and their helper.

The starters were not bad, but we were definitely let down by our main meals, which to say they were poor would be an understatement. I attempted to take a bite of my chicken burger, but it was inedible (Adam did refund me the cost of this on my bill).

My wife managed a quarter of her burger, but again this is as far as she managed to get. I would like to say that it was just the burgers that were poor (4 of our orders were burgers) but the fish and chips was also of a standard that I believe you wouldn't like to hold yourself too.

We were continually reminded of a party of 22 dining after us and were ushered into the bar area for desserts, which wasn't a problem, but when I came to pay my bill of £270 and I commented on the poor quality of the food, I was told that this could have been down to the chefs concerns for the large party that were following us.

It was such a shame that we were let down by the quality of the food, as it had been recommended to us by a number of people, and it did taint the birthday...