Axe & Square — Restaurant in Blaby

Expected more.

After being to The Lime Tree a few months before I had high expectations for the Axe & Square!

The food was not up to the same standard of that at the other establishment. The white wine was room temp, when asked for another bottle, it was just as warm.

The calamari was very tasty, a very nice little hint of maybe curry powder in the batter! It was just a tad small on portion side unfortunately.

For the beef ‘croquette’ if you can even call it that. Look at the size of it! It’s huge! That is not a croquette. Politely, my best way of describing it; a posh corn dog. Thick breading/batter around a densely packed dry log of pulled beef. (See pictures). I did my best to eat it all but it was so heavy for a starter. Croquettes are small pillowy creamy binder combined with a filling!

For the mains the sea bass fillet was tasty and a creamy delicate sauce to accompany it. However my partner was really looking forward to the samfire (why she chose the dish), but there was maybe 3 or 4 pieces of it under all the sauce! That was a shame. Otherwise very enjoyable.

Finally, the gochujang pulled pork. Didn’t taste of gochujang at all. The pork looked like it was been microwaved in a takeaway pot and turned onto a bed of rice (see picture). It was still formed in shape packed together! It was just a bit bland. Not much taste.

Credit where credit is due, my girlfriends dishes tasted good, she clearly picked the better food options!

-1* for un chilled white wine. -1* for posh corn dog. -1* for bland ‘gochujang’...

Very disappointed. Visited at lunchtime New Years Eve. Started off well, we were shown to our table straight away, given menus & our drinks order taken. Waitress who took our order was very friendly. Waited a reasonable amount of time for our starters. The arancini was very good, but the calamari was slightly over-cooked and tough. At almost £7.00, I expected a bit better. After that, it went downhill. Ordered the"moo & blue". So overcooked the cheese had completely evaporated. The wagyu beefburger was completely ruined. Bits of it were inedible. The chips were sparse, and a lot of little bits, not full chips. Again, at the price of £13.95 I expected better. A lot better. We ordered another round of drinks & had to ask twice for them to arrive. We were asked by the waitress if we wanted any sauces, we asked for vinegar & by the time it arrived we'd virtally finished the meal. We then waited so long for the bill, we ended up going to the bar, only to find all the staff standing in a huddle having a good old chat! We had high hopes for this pub when we heard about the refurb & re-opening, it would have been a crying shame to have lost another pub, but the quality of the food & the service is just not good enough for the prices being charged. In all fairness, it was New Years Eve, and the restaurant gradually filled up after our arrival, but that is no excuse for bad cooking & poor service. Next time, we'll stick to Dine India in the village. Excellent quality & service even when it's full. Extremely disappointed, could be so...

The way this pub has been renovated is great, and it seems to be well maintained. The food and drinks were good (one of the drinks is pictured and was fab for an alcohol free option). The menu seemed to be to have a few samey items on, such as a chicken strips starter was available as a main (slightly differing descriptions though, but the main was essentially a bigger version of the starter with accompaniments), and chilli jam seems to be fashionable. We hadn't pre-ordered, which may have helped us, as the service was quite slow, and we were forgotten about a couple of times when offered menus. We were sat in a small area of the restaurant part, and unfortunately a teenage group were seated in the same area that were quite loud, up and down every few mins, and their conversations weren't really appropriate for the young children we had in our group to overhear. If possible, we would ask to be seated in the larger part of the pub on another visit. The other group also opened the windows when they arrived, which wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for smokers standing directly outside. Whilst I understand eating out is a lot more of a luxury than it used to be, given the overall atmosphere and location, feedback would be that the drink prices could do with lowering. We weren't able to park in the car park, but could park for free as it was after 6pm in the small council car park located just behind on the...