The Five Bells — Restaurant in Braintree

Awful service received 2 years running for a pre booked Christmas dinner for 6 and 8 respectively. Year one, the order was messed up resulting in one of our party not having his prepaid ordered meal. It was not only not prepared or recorded but they had no record of the party consisting of 6 even though my receipt stated this and I personally gave each persons choices on the same day that I paid upfront for the meals. This left them having to choose from the standard pub menu for their main meal. The service was slow, with everyone waiting excessively between courses with no discount offered for their booking error.

Year two was even worse, again all due to the service. An appalling wait between courses with meals all arriving at different times. So while some were eating mains others had finished theirs some 15 minutes earlier. We were then Totally ignored for some 45 mins after finishing our deserts resulting in one of our party having to seek out a staff member to order coffees.

Now bearing in mind that these meals were all pre booked and are all pre paid with everyone's choices all given upfront, I find it amazing that we were so badly treated.

Oh and on another occasion I had a gravy covered potato dropped down my shirt by the waitress and as an apology was offered some more spuds! never mind the ruined shirt!

My honest advice is that its a nice stop off on a walk for a pint and a sandwich but don't trust the place for your...

We had booked to go for Mother’s Day. When I booked, there was no menu online but when I checked a few days before, they had uploaded a Mother’s Day menu. It was a set price for 2 or 3 courses. When we arrived, we were taken to our table and someone came to take our order for drinks. We wasn’t given any menus. Eventually we had to ask for a menu and we was then brought one menu between 5 of us. I asked if we could have some more but was told that was the only menu they had. They said that we should have been contacted to preorder before we got to the pub but this never happened. Upon looking at the menu, I noticed it was a different menu to the one that was on their website and the price was considerably higher (£9 dearer for 2 courses than the one on the website). We ordered our food which was 4 adult meals and 1 kids meals. When the meals came out, the kids meal was missing. We asked where it was and was told it will be a few more minutes. My partner asked whether it was forgotten and got told yes, it had been forgotten. The food was exceptional and everyone really enjoyed their meals but it just felt like the place wasn’t very well organised and when you expect to pay so much for a set menu to then get given another for a lot more money, was kind of gutting but ultimately the food was brilliant. I would return as the food was so good and hope the organisation of the place improves. The pub is lovely and cosy so it’s a shame the...

I wouldn't eat here again, but drinks are lovely! We were lured in by a nice menu, but honestly the burgers were absolurely rank (I'll explain more later). The staff were all 100% lovely, attentive, professional, we cannot fault them, a great team who worked well together. All the tables were cleaned and the whole place looked lovely. Dog friendly too, which is a bonus!

About the dreadful burger... sweet bacon and blue cheese? No! Very wrong! Although there was hardly any blue cheese on there. And sour dough buns? Are you mad? I could only stomach one bite and had to send it back, and let me tell you, my standards aren't that high because although I prefer a posh grass fed handmade burger, I'm also happy to slum it to the Burgerking standards at times. So for me to not be able to eat your burger.... it says it all! Tasted like a burger from Iceland's budget range, very compacted beef, gritty, and just gross. And for £15 quid... extortion!!

Thankfully the kind staff took the price off our bill. My husband ordered the same thing and was equally disgusted but he was more hungry than me so he choked it down. He also wasn't impressed.

Up your game, food wise, and you'll have a really nice place there!

Plenty of ales, wines etc. Lovely staff. Dog friendly. Beautiful location, stunning view from the window. The only thing lacking is the rank frozen...