Duke Of Wellington — Restaurant in Braintree

This was the first time visiting, we have recently moved to the area and wanted to have a nice meal with my parents before they go away for a month. I was really looking forward to it all day but I ended up not enjoying the evening at al!

We booked it online 2-3 days before, the only available booking was 7:45pm which is fine. However, it was a bad experience from start to finish.

We arrived and waited at the “wait here” sign for a couple of minutes before a lady who I am assuming was the manager saw us and straight away just said “there’s no more tables in the conservatory if you’re looking for a table” so not the warmest of welcomes. We advised we had booked a table for 7:45 and gave her the name it was booked under. She came back a couple of minutes later and said again “there’s no more tables in the conservatory, we just have this table here” and took us to the pub side, she then advised we had to order at the bar. So although we had booked a table for the nice restaurant table service side, we were dumped into the loud pub side where we had to get up to order at the bar. Where there was a rowdy group of four who had clearly been drinking for hours and had their two dogs, who although were very cute, they kept yapping, as well as their noisy owners making it difficult for us to talk to each other.

When we ordered, we were advised it was a bit of a wait due to there being a table of 40 in the restaurant part. The starters were very nice! This was the best part of the evening. For mains, I had steak and asked for fries instead of fat chips, when it came out it had fat chips so had to send it back for what I ordered! I wasn’t very impressed with the steak to be honest and although they warned us of the wait, it was just over an hour wait for our food.

The lady I assumed was manager who sat us down just sat on the public side at the bar talking to her friends, and looked annoyed every time she had to clear our table (which took a while to be cleared each time), when she cleared the starters she said “when did you book? Did you book it today?” - which is irrelevant. We booked a few days before but no matter what day or time we booked, the booking was available to book so we should have been in the nice restaurant bit. When she cleared our mains she said “sorry we are tied up, we have a table of 40 in the conservatory who changed their booking time” - so just because they decided to change their booking time, we suffered being put into the rowdy pub part and having bad service. A table of 40 should not be allowed to change their time, and if so, we provided our number when we booked so we could have been phoned to ask if we minded coming earlier or later. Then after advising us that they are so tied up, she went back to sitting and talking to her friends (which is what makes me believe she was manager to be able to get away with that).

My mum ordered a mulled wine which came out with no orange slice which is one of the main parts of mulled wine, when we enquired we were then told they’d run out of orange slices, which is fine, but warn us before bringing out the drink?

Honestly, I couldn’t wait to get out of the pub and we skipped dessert just to get out quicker. I am upset about this because it was supposed to be a nice meal out before my parents go away until...

What happened?

We went to the duke on the first week and it was phenomenal. However as regular customers today was the worst visit yet.

A few weeks back we had a burger that just wasn't cooked at all, my colleague bit into it and was raw, I let this go and didn't review.

however today was... in the nicest way possible, a disgrace. Went out for a nice night, in a mostly empty place. The service was slow, had a guy at the bar ask us if we were being served, upon hearing we weren't being served, walked off to the kitchen and eventually came back. Eventually placing our order, half the stuff on tap/ on selection was unavailable. Upon getting a coke, we asked for no ice, and they couldn't even do that, ice in everything. upon second order of drinks, the guy asked us for a second time if we wanted ice, to which we said no and were provided with ice regardless (utter incompetence as this isn't hard to understand in the slightest) . As we ordered, we learnt half the menu was off as they are "changing the menu", no previous warning nor explanation was given when we got the menu or when we turned up with to order until we had decided.

Upon receiving the food, after the manager gave it a tour of the garden, not knowing table numbers, we asked for cutlery, and was told it was in the covered points, one knife and one fork for four of us. Upon having to walk into the bar, w were informed they weren't serving food to the garden and we were lucky to get our out there. Once we got 4 sets of cutlery, we were given a singular napkin to share between 4.

My father went in to get others, explaining the service was below standard. Upon my father leaving he was followed by an arrogant and rude member of staff who had an answer for everything, however not quite right.

We finally got the manager who couldn't identify a steak was overcooked, same guy who didn't know the table numbers. He was making non stop excuses, undertrained staff and staff in training, changing the menu for both food and drinks so had a very limited selection to offer, once again no warning prior.

For our grievance we were offered a dessert or a drink (both on limited options)

I have lived in the village for 26 years, used the duke with my family for most of that, I have never known it so utterly disgraceful. A loss of a...

We booked a table at The Duke of Wellington in Hatfield Peveral recently. We were meeting to say goodbye to family before moving to Dorset. We booked for 7.30, upon our arrival at 7.00 we were greeted by friendly and helpful bar staff, we advised them that we had an extra guest with a baby and they quickly adjusted the seating and made a space for baby pram and brought us Menu's. We ordered our food at 7.30 and asked waiting staff on two occasions as to the whereabouts of our meals. During this time another family member arrived late and ordered, food slowly started arriving at 9.00. All the meals bar one were inedible, two Hunters Chicken were luke warm, looked like they had been cooked yesterday and re heated under the grill, cutting into the chicken revealed very dry meat and one mouthful was enough to confirm that no more was going to be eaten. Steak arrived which did not resemble it's description on menu. Sea Bass arrived looking very limp and appeared uncooked on closer inspection it was found to be raw, just as well the nursing mother that ordered it did not eat much of it. Two meals were luke warm and another meal was very small but apparently tasted nice. One out of seven meals was edible. We asked to see the manager, when the very young man arrived he apologized that some of our meals were not acceptable to us offering up an excuse they were short staffed, he went on to tell us that we had upset the young waiter that had brought our food to us, we explained that we told the inexperienced waiter that we were not happy and reassured him that we were not blaming him for the state of our food. He continued to speak to us in a patronising, arrogant and dismissive manner and then proceeded to walk away without offering any acceptable solution to our justified complaint. A member of our family talked with the manager at the bar and it was agreed that we only pay for our drinks. We will not return to this resturant, it was a horrible waste of an evening and we left feeling very...