Denmans Restaurant — Restaurant in Calderdale

Managed to book in for a anniversary meal. Loved the idea of a blind menu...Not knowing what is on the menu until you arrive. Arrived to a small cosy restaurant. And decided on two starters and two mains and hopefully a dessert.

Poppadom starter was very nice, chicken moist and full of flavour. The poppadom itself had a very very slight stale texture... The food is very fresh don't get me wrong I think the humidity got to it.

Prawns Vesuvius, appearance didn't look special but it was tasty!!!

Both starters are HUGE

Belly pork main very nice!! The crackling was perfect and not salty like some I've had. Pork very soft and pulled apart with ease. Very generous in size. My preference would be a little more jus and mash was very smooth

Lamb, cooked perfectly, although it had a strong lamb smell when served my partner said it didn't have the lamb taste and was very good.

Loved that when we ordered dessert they had written happy anniversary on a board when presenting the dessert to us, thank you we though that was a very warm touch.

Food very very nice, so why 4 and not 5 star, they are very minor little things...

As I don't eat lamb I'm very sensitive to lamb. I think somewhere along the line of plating up the person must've touched the lamb and something on my plate as I tasted a slight lamb taste on my pork dish. As we didn't order any alcohol...Our wine glasses wasn't taken away like they did with other tables. I placed myy empty bottle of orange juice on the edge of the table to be taken away. It wasn't taken away. I asked a waitress to take it away when main course was served. It was there from beginning of starters and when main was served during that time we was asked if we needed another drink. I think a new staff may have started which would explain these little things.

I would come back again and I...

Birthday meal out disaster

Having visited Denmans twice before we were confident it would be as good again….how wrong we were.

New ownership meant all new staff and, other than the food being below average, Mrs Trunchbowl who was running front of house only made it worse. A face that could turn milk sour. We waited over 1hour for starters….as did three other tables around us and when they arrived they were ok. I stress ok though, not great, not bad, ok. When asked at 45 mins when they would arrive, Mrs Trunchbowl very snappily said ‘soon’.

We then waited over 30 minutes for mains, again, as did the tables around us. We were going to leave before they arrived and how we wish we had. Unrendered fat on the rack of lamb, odd tasting venison and overcooked steak…it certainly wasn’t pink as promised. We were asked at the start if ‘pink was ok’. We could only dream of such cooking! It was accompanied…5 minutes later…by some naff new potatoes and some tempura courgettes. I say Tempura….cooked in a temper would be nearer the mark. Dreadful.

I asked for a Diet Coke for my wife to be snarled at with ‘YES’ by Mrs Trunchbowl. She was just making EVERYTHING worse. Pretty sure in hospitality you should be hospitable…

When we told her about our disappointment over the mains she snapped, ‘you won’t want puddings then’! Wow. As if she couldn’t get worse.

The food was below average but was made infinitely worse with the simply diabolical service we, and the few tables around us received. They also complained about the food.

A bad night at the grill for the chef, but to truly change this he needs to change his front of house because it’s arguably the worst ‘service’ I’ve ever had.

The young waitress was very pleasant and clearly very uncomfortable. Actually felt sorry for her.

Suffice to say we...

Tapas style food drip fed to table. Took 30 mins for our drinks order to arrive and a further 30 mins for some bread and pesto. Onion bhajis were a little large for my taste and smelled burned but were good. Halloumi was nice. Marsala cod couldn't taste marsala but was tasty none the less. Truffle chips came after this main course which was an odd timing. Wife had some sort of meat which she enjoyed. Larger not sold in pints but 3/4 pints. Drinks expensive by comparison. If possible get seated upstairs as downstairs lacks atmosphere. Service was slow to start as mentioned above. Was nice to spend some quality time kid free so overall enjoyed the night Neal cost £90 which was probably £20 too much...