Giggling Squid - Brentwood — Restaurant in Brentwood

Food was really nice however the service was terrible. The food is well presented and full of flavour. It's reasonably priced too. However the waiter seemed to have forgotten about us. Asked for more drinks when he brought the starters over. Mains took a long time and they didn't clear our starter plates before bringing them over so we'd been sitting with dirty plates in front of us for a while and the waiter needed to call someone else over to clear the table before setting the mains down. After finishing my main I then went up to the waiter and asked what was happening with the waters I ordered. He said he'll bring it in a minute however he never did. A few minutes later he brought me a second cocktail which I didn't order and no drink for the other person. He ran off before I could tell him. I then spotted the manager speaking to the table next to us who were experiencing similar issues to us and were obviously forgotten about also. I called him over and asked him not to charge us for the drink we didn't order and explained how poor the service had been. He was not apologetic however stated that he would discount the bill and take the drink off. He then came over and we paid. Once we were leaving he approached us and stopped us stating that we owed him £3.00 service charge which we had not paid. We showed him our receipt to prove that we had paid the amount shown and stated that he did not put a service charge on there and that we wouldn't pay one anyway due to the...

I feel compelled to share my recent experience at Giggling Squid in Brentwood, as it has left me deeply concerned about their food safety practices and customer service.

On December 1st, 2024, I had a meal there, which included prawns. Hours later, I became violently ill with severe vomiting and diarrhea that lasted for two days. What makes this more alarming is that I was the only person in my group to eat prawns, and no one else fell ill.

I reported the incident to the restaurant immediately, but their response has been nothing short of dismissive. Instead of taking my complaint seriously, they speculated that my illness might have been caused by norovirus—even though there is no evidence to support this claim, and my family members, who ate with me and live in the same household, were unaffected.

Despite my requests, they refused to provide transparent details about their seafood handling.

To anyone considering eating at Giggling Squid, especially the Brentwood location, I urge you to think twice. If you’ve had a similar experience, please speak up—it’s vital to hold businesses accountable to prevent others from getting sick.

I’m sharing my story to raise awareness and ensure no one else has to go...

Went there with the girlfriend tonight (Sunday at 7pm) , she really liked the food, I thought it was ok. My MAIN issue was the service, it wasn't that the staff were rude, it's that they didn't pay enough attention to us.

They were too busy tidying up and doing till receipts so they can go home as soon as the customers finished. During the meal my girlfriend wanted a glass of coke, I was looking around for 5 mins to get someone's attention, couldn't get anyone as everyone were concentrating on tidying up for closing up later on, then I walked over to the till and told the gentleman about the drink order and he said he would get it sent over (he was polite), few mins later when I looked over to check because the drink still hadn't come, I then saw him finishing what he was doing then tell the other staff to bring over the drink.

I had decided then I would leave ZERO tip as I wasn't happy with the service. When the bill came there was an automatic 10% added on (with an option to remove it), but I am not going to embarrass myself or the staff by asking to remove it so I would rather just pay it.

But overall I...