Prince Louis — Restaurant in Braintree

Having worked and lived in Braintree for the past 6 years I've been to Prince Louis my fair share of times for food. Usually a handful of times a year, 3 so far in 2025 and we're in mid-March. This place has always been spot on but today was an infuriating experience, out of principle more than anything.

Ordered using the McMullen's app, couple of starters, mains and two large pepsi's. Drinks came out with the glasses literally full of ice from bottom to top. We all know some establishments like to take the mick sometimes with ice amounts, but this was beyond ridiculous. Admittedly we didn't complain immediately but I said to my partner jeez look at the state of those. We debated whether we should complain or not and by the time we complained we had drank some. We politely brought this to the servers attention who I was surprised seemed to have the attitude of giving us the metaphorical roll eyes treatment, as if we were being petty. It's not being petty it's principle - with the extreme amount of ice we were served on this occasion, not only are you being short changed on volume of actual drink, but more importantly as the ice starts to melt it dilutes the pepsi to the point you all but lose the taste of pepsi. And at £3.25 a glass it leaves even more bad taste, we could of just ordered a tap water for free if we wanted a bland tasting drink with our meal. The server did to be fair have the correct remedy and offered to fetch us another 2 glasses without ice to which we accepted. Off they went and appeared to be discussing it with somebody who looked like the manager, returning to our table only to say that after discussing with my manager the amount of ice you have been given is NORMAL for 16oz glasses and therefore there's nothing that we can do about it blah blah. Wow, in my book and from eating in restaurants (including this one numerous times) for the 35 years I've been on this planet, there is nothing 'normal' about completely filling a glass with ice then putting some soft drink in it. I've not had an issue like this with the Prince Louis before so it must be some 'new normal' thing they've recently implemented...? So at this point I'm now angry, the premises have already upset me, and now they're trying to blag me to make me think their mistake is normal.

Going into the scientifics of their claim 16oz is 473ml and a pint is 568ml. The official specs of the pepsi branded glass the drinks were served in is 570ml, so essentially a pint. Thus, if you fill a pint glass up with large dense ice cubes and then try and fit 83%+ of a pint of liquid in there what will happen, will it fit? Of course not.

Considered ordering another two glasses one with ice and one without, and then calling the manager over to conduct the experiment in front of them and then raise a complaint under the Weights and Measures Act. But in the end decided rather than putting another £6.50 in their undeserved pockets, I'll just eat my grub, get out of there and vote with my wallet instead (the food was spot on by the way like it always is).

Shame as sometimes little things like that can really peeve you off especially when your treated like you were just born yesterday and that it's 'normal' to serve a soft drink with the glass completely full of ice top to bottom. Won't be going back there again after that, will give the Astronomer a chance instead. Don't suppose they'll be bothered about losing out on my few hundred quid a year anyway. Most places who won't try and appease customers over a couple glasses of soft drinks don't.

Before we left we did see another table close to us get served a large soft drink, in the same glass, but with the ice only around 1/4 full from the top. Now THAT is what I...

A little bit gutted to be leaving this review as I've been to the pub several times and enjoyed my evenings there. However! ...

We arrived as a party of 7 (5 adults, 2 kids) for a pre-booked 4:30pm table. We ordered drinks and were presented with the Sunday Menu which, as you would expect, was mainly based around Sunday Roast dinners. Great stuff, aside from the kids and my elderly Nan, we were all going to have a roast. Think again. A very smiley young man informed us that they had just taken an order which exhausted their supply of roast dinners. To be completely honest, I wanted to leave at that point. But rather than throw my toys out of the pram, push my wheelchair bound Grandmother back into the car to find somewhere else, we decided to grin and bare it. So, we all ordered, starters and a main. The starters came out and although I wasn't overly impressed, they did the job. The plates were cleared. Then, we waited. And waited. And waited. 6:15pm ... 105 minutes after we sat down, our mains arrived. Again, it wasn't particularly impressive, in fact, it was bang average, but at this point I'd have eaten my own arm. Against my better judgement, we ordered dessert. And again, we waited. No wait for the bill though, which arrived BEFORE dessert via who I'm assuming was the manager. She politely informed us that as an apology for the long wait for dinner, she had authorised a 20% discount on the bill. Fair enough and it was appreciated. However, on closer inspection of the bill, it had been discounted by 15%. Whatever, I just wanted my Waffle now then I need to rush home and get the kids ready for bed. And still we wait ... By 7:10pm, 5 minutes after my Wife enquires as to the reason it takes 40 minutes to serve ice cream, a young man approaches to ask if it was ALL of the desserts we were waiting for? That's it. I asked him to cancel the desserts and bring me a new bill, which is back in seconds! Amazing. I raise the percentage issue with the young man and he tells me "The computer does it automatically, it's not wrong". Errr, yes son, it is. Total bill is £133, we're discounted £19. He then explains that it wouldn't discount certain items, like drinks for example, perhaps because we didn't have to wait an age for these to arrive, I dunno, but not quite the message I understood from the Manager. All in all, a complete disappointment and a shame as my family were over from New Zealand and we were looking forward to a nice meal out for the first time in 5 years, which was utterly ruined.

I won't hold this against the establishment and will still drink here from time to time and I must say, in the main, the serving staff we polite and helpful. I just won't be dining here again, not if I'm...

Went for a family lunch as a party of six. They were busy. However, service was exceptionally slow. Ordered a main meal only at 14:07 and the food arrived at the table at 15:10. (We asked twice when our food would be at the table). I had the three meat roast. Meat portions was not generous. The gammon was rock hard. Our roast potatoes were so overcooked they were black! These were quickly exchanged with two bowels of fresh roast potatoes. But honestly what type of staff do they employ that would have the mindset to allow such food out of their kitchen? Plates were cold and the Yorkshire puddings were cold and dry. All in all very disappointing.

Table staff were slow to clear the table after the main course. We had to remind them twice.

Two of our party ordered a knickerbocker glory for dessert. These also took about 30 minutes to arrive without spoons. When we asked for spoons, normal dessert spoons were brought to the table. We needed to explain the type of spoon required to reach the bottom of the glass. Ten minutes later the correct spoons arrived.

Generally, the issues we experienced were due to untrained, no doubt casual staff. Most seemed under 20 years. They showed little aptitude in their work. I can only imagine the chaos in the kitchen!

Nice enough ambiance and decor but really let down by the staff. I could not recommend dining here due to our poor overall experience.

Update to above review.

Good to see the response from management, and I hope some actions will be taken to improve the quality issues I found. I've improved my overall score to 3 stars as I appreciate a detailed response from the...