Steak of the Art — Restaurant in Bristol

We fell in love (ironically) with Steak of the Art on Valentines day this year when we came in for our first visit where we had an amazing meal and amazing service, so much so on exiting the restaurant I called the manager over to tell them how amazing our server was and how good the food was. We loved it so much that it was a no-brainer where we would go on my fiancee's birthday with our extended family. 2 of whom are massive fans of pasture which we also visited with them in March and spent the whole night telling them how much better SOA was. Although childish this started a bit of a weird family rivalry where we sung SOA praises while they defended pasture so I was expecting big things for the birthday visit....

Sadly, our visit last night was really not good at all. The restaurant was very quiet (which is not a massive problem) but after our visit I understand why.... There was a real lack of atmosphere from the start which was only exasperated by the music randomly turning off and the restaurant being in silence with about 12 covers! Despite being nowhere near what I would call busy our service was really poor..... The 2x soft drinks which were ordered (2 cokes I believe) were warm/room temperature seemingly poured straight from a bottle that hadn't been chilled. What made the poor service even more challenging was the staff seemingly had no dress code, so who worked there and who was a guest was a lottery, we even accidentally asked another patron if they worked there as a result!

We were left unattended for long periods at a time and sat with dirty plates after our starters finished which weren't collected until our mains came... which took some time! (The honey beer bread which I raved about before this time was basically cold toast!)

Myself and my fiancee ordered a tomahawk with Mac n Cheese and truffle fries..... the fries tasted like oven chips with a bit or parmesan thrown on top.... These remained virtually untouched. My biggest gripe, however, was the steak itself. Every steak ordered was massively over cooked. Our "medium" steak was very well done, as was the "medium well" and the well done fillet was incinerated! This made the steak chewy and dry so much so as it cooled down it was inedible! The cheese sauce barely tasted of cheese at all and my brother in law (the pasture fan) mocked me the whole way home, his jibes I sadly had to accept and agree with this time!

There was also a £30 service charge added which we asked to be removed as the service was about a 3/10!

I just feel that this is such a shame as this was for a special birthday occasion and we had such a positive first experience, so much so we were even planning on visiting the Cardiff branch when we are in the area for a concert in a few weeks time which we will now change our plans for.

While our Valentines day visit was amazing I sadly don't think we will return and book either Pasture in advance or Mugshot next time we want a...

Myself and my party had a Christmas meal here on Thursday 15th December.

On arrival we made the staff aware that 2 of the party of 10 were not going to make it due to illness so it would be 8. I was then asked if we wanted wine for the table to cover the 2 deposits paid for these guests which we said yes to. 2x £10 deposits.

The meal itself took an hour for starters to come out, another hour if not longer for mains to come out, and then desserts about 30/40mins after that, all while coming from a pre-order. Cant say I, or any of my party have experienced longer waits in any restaurant, especially with a pre-order. Coincidentally a colleague came a week before and said the exact same about the wait times and he was with just his partner so seems to be a reoccurring issue.

To add to the ridiculous wait times we were given wrong meals for starters, mains and desserts and because of the wait time already, we had to just to accept it otherwise we would have never eaten. Additionally even with incorrect meals, 2 were sent back for being either cold or not cooked well enough.

To add insult to injury after the big issues above, the bill comes with 10 full price meals. This was immediately contested and I was advised that this covering the wine, which as referred to at the start was told would be covered by the 2 x £10 deposits, not 2 x additional full 3 course meal costs.

I was told these were then going to be taken off but a small supplement for the wine would be added. At this point the time to continue this conversation was over, 1 pregnant women in the party was over heating and feeling faint so we left after paying. The ‘small’ surcharge was £29, firstly this isn’t small and secondly wasn’t agreed in any way shape or form and again contradicts what was explicitly laid out at the start that the deposits would cover the wine and nothing further to be charged.

As you can imagine from the above complaints of wrongful charges, wrong meals, meals not cooked correctly and having to go back, and the mammoth wait times, we were not to be paying a service charge, but that also was still kept on the bill after asking for it to be removed.

I sent a complaint email on 21/12/22 and have not yet had a reply, even after chasing up with a further email. Awful service and by far the worst steak restaurant in...

This place has severely gone down hill.

We booked a table for 2 for Sunday dinner. We arrived At 7:30pm we were sat down and ordered our drinks. The waiter or manager was super blasé about just about everything....the guy clearly didn’t want to be there and by his demeanour didn’t really care about the impression he gave to his customers. My partner asked about a Fanta - waiter responded “we don’t have that”, she Then asked about a tango and was given the same response. 🙄🙄🙄. We asked about a roast dinner and were told “we just ran out”. Had we been told before ordering our drinks we probably would have gone elsewhere. We then ordered our food from the menu which is numbered. I said number 7 - waiter had to look at the menu to confirm what it was 👍🏻. It’s not exactly a large menu...anyway we also ordered a vegetable starter which was half the size of the one on the table next to us despite being the same price. I literally wanted to tell the guy - if you don’t wanna be here mate, there’s plenty of willing people waiting to take your job who quite frankly will be a lot more welcoming to customers.

Once that was finished we had to ask to be served more drinks rather than being offered, no one actually asked how the meal was until we went to pay..to my surprise a service charge had been added without us being notified - I asked this to be removed. All in all we paid just shy of £100 for 2 poorly cooked and seasoned steaks (no seasoning at all) a few very bland and forgettable side dishes including seasonal veg which was very likely just recycled from the roast that day, some tasteless Mac and cheese and burnt Sweet potato fries. I don’t mind paying for quality and good food but this just isn’t it. I highly advise you to give this place a miss - it’s just not worth it which is a huge shame. The decor is beautiful but the food and the service are shocking for such an expensive place.

It was also freezing inside as they decided to keep the door open 👍🏻 I had to ask for it to be closed. So many basics of the hospitality trade have been overlooked or simply disregarded here and it’s a real shame. We’ll go to miller and carters next time which is cheaper and way more welcoming...