Lyttelton Arms — Restaurant in Bromsgrove

A lovely quaint pub. I visited here with two friends and we had the valentines menu. There was a good choice of starters.

I had the creamy mushrooms which came with three slices of sourdough bread, it was nice but I did have to add a little seasoning as it felt a little bland, but overall a nice mushroom dish.

The second dish was the rib eye steak and I have to say I was disappointed. There was so much fat and gristle on the steak I left most of it which was a shame. The accompanying wild mushrooms were nice with the beef dripping chips which were also tasty. I added an additional sauce which was priced at £2 for the peppercorn sauce which was lovely, it’s just a shame the main element of the meal was so poor.

For dessert I had the warm brownie which was absolutely amazing, it did state that there was meant to be amaretto crumbs but I had none, it was a brownie with ice cream and chocolate sauce and if you have a sweet tooth you would enjoy it. You can swap for a cocktail if you didn’t want dessert which is better value if you wanted that instead.

My friends ordered the pork belly with scallops which she was very impressed with and would recommend, my other friend had the feta bean salad with added chicken which was an additional £4 but was value for money as there was plenty chicken.

The cocktails were lovely and a standard price for cocktails which were between £9.50 upwards. The baileys martini is nice and creamy, the Mai Tai and old fashioned were also worth a try but the pina colada needs to be creamier as it felt like it was mixed with water, as it just tasted overpowering with the alcohol and didn’t make a nice drink.

The wine can work out to an average deal as it cost £40 for two bottles of Chardonnay (I didn’t drink the wine but I was told it was nice)

The honeycomb hot chocolate is nice, and they will do a floater coffee with a choice of spirit if you ask.

The service was brilliant and we felt that we were looked after, we didn’t feel rushed and they even reserved a table in the bar for us after our food too. We spent £200 which was for three, three course meals. Two bottles of wine and two cocktails.

Would I visit again? Yes but unfortunately I wouldn’t...

We are fairly regular customers and have done Christmas here a few times but after this experience we won't bother again next year. We were even unsure about booking again as last year 5 of us were crammed on a small table but we were reassured we'd have a better table this year, which we did.

We arrived at 12:40 for our 1pm table and planned to have a drink in the bar but we were told our table was ready and we could have a drink there until we were ready for food. After being sat down for a few minutes the amuse bouche arrived so we mentioned to our waitress that we were just having a drink for now and didn't want our food yet as we had also told the host. Then our starters came... We told the runners that we had asked not to have our food yet and they spoke to the host and he said noone had told him?! The response was that there's nothing they can do now the starters are out but they will hold off calling away the mains. Not only were we served food far earlier than we wanted to be but one of them was even the wrong dish. Further disgruntlement came from the fact that it stated figs on the menu and it wasn't even a whole fig on the plate.

We did have a nice wait before our main which was appreciated. The mains were fine but all the roast potatoes were very pale, the bottom of the dauphinoise was black and the beef wellington was overcooked but also had raw pastry! We were also very disappointed that the sprouts were shredded - we used to love the gratin!

We couldn't even mention the issues during the meal as we never had a check back. Even trying to order a drink was a nightmare. We had to flag a waiter down and were never actually asked if we wanted to order one.

Unfortunately we asked for the service charge to be taken off as we were so disappointed by the service. Thank you to the manager with the longish hair who actually tried to deal with the issue. He took the service charge off for us and made a gesture to compensate us with some complimentary drinks.

Such a shame as it's meant to be the best dinner of the year and we left feeling disappointed and ripped off. We would come back but never for a...

Sadly going downhill! This place has been a regular of mine for a few years, sadly the last three times food hasn’t been great and or service slow. Last night I went with a friend we ordered garlic mushroom starters which were at best luke warm topped with cold pieces of chopped tomato, we couldn’t taste any garlic, and to top it off, just as my friend was half way through hers she pulled out two long hairs which were enmeshed in the mushrooms - yuk!!

Our mains eventually arrived the waitress announced linguine without scallops, I was a little confused as scallops hadnt been mentioned when we ordered. My friend was also given linguine with scallops and she had ordered fish! There was clearly a mix up in the kitchen, the waitress sorted it out and my friend said her dish although wasn’t very warm was ok. Mine was mediocre, the crabmeat had obviously just come out of the fridge as it was cold, not helped by more cold chopped tomatoes on top of the dish - I’m guessing they needed to use up tomatoes!

Desserts were better. Although after we had eaten them and were preparing to ask for the bill, a waitress came over and placed a desert on our table that we hadn’t ordered - another mixup I’m guessing as she looked totally confused and took it away. Needless to say, on checking the bill, the dessert had been added to our bill!

I’m not sure what’s happened at the Lyttleton, be it a different chef or kitchen management but the food and service were not great, a shame as it’s a nice pub however, I feel there are much better places locally to eat places and I wont be eaten there in the future.

I would say that the waitresses did their best to try to rectify things but clearly there are issues beyond...