The Spotted Cow — Restaurant in Bristol

Very friendly staff and a great vibe and I would go back but absolutely NOT FOR THE Food.

Our food took 50 minutes to get to us and we were starving and that's just ridiculous to be honest , considering the fact that most tables were ordering drinks, that shouldn't have been the case. Our desert came before our main meal and after our starter which came with no butter for the bread, none of that makes sense. And how can it be so confusing?

Then..we had recieved our soft drinks after 20 minutes or so at double the price we had expected to pay because a mistake was made and we got full pints instead of half, but people make mistakes so we accepted it and moved on.

However... The table wasn't cleared after each course that we ate or drank so we had a full table of plates and cutlery and we even had to put it on the remaining 2 chairs so we could make space on the table .

QUALITY OF FOOD: I will be brutally honest, their beef burger is not worth £17,its worth £3 max, the patty was put together terribly, it had no spices or anything apart from pepper and it kept crumbling apart, the only thing that kept my mouth from drying up like the dessert was the fact that there was a slice of tomato on there. I had ordered extra blue cheese and bacon on the burger and the bacon was tastier than the patty, I should have just ordered a bacon sandwich or gone to subway. I was completely ripped off on the blue cheese, it was not melted in the center of the burger like it should have been, and also there was so little blue cheese on there I only had literally one bite of the burger and tasted it then it was gone! The chips weren't too bad for chips out the bag. But fact is I could tell they're not freshly made.

The duck: was extremely dry, the shallot salad was not a shallot salad at all, so why name it that?

So all in all the Dining experience was not the greatest and I wouldn't give my compliments to the chef if you paid me.

I can say that the presentation of the food was very good, but who goes to eat just to see what the food looks like on a plate? So presentation doesn't make up for much.

We'll be back but only with friends if they're wanting to drink and hang out..

Please note that if you are looking to try a couples dining experience, or wanting to go somewhere to eat for a date night that you will be disappointed in this place... Just don't do it.

The friendly staff and atmosphere give this place 3 stars from me......

Used to love this local pub but have had a couple of really frustrating experiences with how it’s being managed there recently.

Recently I booked a table for some food with friends at 3pm on a Saturday. When we got there we were initially told that they would only serve food for booked tables (we had booked), then when we tried to order we were told that the kitchen was closed and wouldn’t open until 5pm. The staff told us that they don’t serve food at 3pm and that I would have been told this when I booked online.

I didn’t remember this… but we thought ok, we’ll just have another drink and wait and order food for 5pm, as it was a rainy Saturday and with no booking anywhere else it was unlikely that we’d get a table elsewhere. We went to get another drink at about 4pm and then we were told that, actually, we couldn’t order any food at 5pm because we hadn’t booked. This was despite the fact that we had booked earlier and we were sat at a table which was available until 7pm.

Apparently this was because we had booked on a Saturday in December and they only serve set Christmas party meals…

I just checked and absolutely nowhere on the website when you book does it say a) booking at 3pm will be for drinks only, and b) they are only serving a Christmas set menu at specific times.

We had our toddler with us and my friend was pregnant (which I mentioned) and the fact that they flat out refused to serve us any food on a free table was wild. Esp as we were willing to sit there for a couple of hours spending money on drinks and THEN also eat food on a free table. Couldn’t quite believe it. Doesn’t make any business sense, but more importantly we felt like we were basically gas-lit by the supervisor working that day and made to feel like we hadn’t done our homework on their food rules. It shouldn’t be this hard to get lunch on a Saturday afternoon.

Would suggest management review their website and the signs in the pub to make it clear what you’re able to provide. And some goodwill, flexibility and maybe an apology from the staff when they realised our situation would also have...

Sunday roast was totally overrated, cold and disappointing. We were super excited to eat at The Spotted Cow after managing to get a reservation on the Monday for the Sunday. With the place being often fully booked out for a roast we had high expectations...and at £15 a plate we thought it would be pretty good. However despite being some of the first people to have roast on the Sunday as we booked a 12:30 table, we couldn't have been more disappointed with our meal. The meat was cold and very fatty ( we both had beef). The potatoes tasted like grease as did the roasted vegetables; they also lacked any texture that you would expect from roasted vegetables. And the rest of the vegetables and the Yorkshire puddings were cold. We also treated ourselves to a cauliflower cheese which was also bitter disappointment. It just didn't taste cheesy. Typically my partner and I would send the food back, but there was so much fundamentally wrong with it that we didn't bother and just agreed to never go back. It felt like the chef probably didn't taste the food or just didn't care what it tasted like before sending it out to guests.

We also noticed that staff coming into the garden didn't take any time to clear away plates or clean down surfaces.

So why did we give it 2 stars? Well there were loads of beer and cider options on tap and the beer garden they had was really nice. That was the only plus side so we've given them a star each for that. That being said the drinks are really expensive.

All in all I would say The Spotted Cow is probably alright to go out for a few pints with your parents but I really wouldn't take anyone there for a roast. If you've got 15 quid to spare and enough money for £5+ a pint you're better off staying at home and making yourself a really...