The Orator — Restaurant in Cambridge

A very nice location and building, but sadly service is terrible and food was just okay, probably overpriced for the quality. We had a table booked for 2pm and arrived promptly. There were only 3 tables in the restaurant (12 people). We had menus on the table and were left to look at menus. We had to prompt bar staff to get some water for the table, there were 3 of them at the bar, they said they would send some. It took quite a while. Again we were left looking at menus and had to prompt the bar staff to ask if we could order drinks to which the bartender responded he would send someone over. The restaurant was static and 3 staff behind the bar doing nothing. Eventually a waiter arrived and took drinks order. No limoncello in the building and the waiter wasn’t sure if all the roses wines were available? He was going to check if there was any limoncello in the building. That also took a while. Drinks very slow in arriving (1by 1) as bat staff seemed to prioritise customers approaching bar for drinks from the garden. We prompted for food order and food came relatively promptly. Burgers had a lot of liquid/fat coming out of them, I would say quite overpriced for quality. Again we needed to prompt for another drinks order. It was a very very hot day and no fans or AC in restaurant. All windows open so as soon as food arrived so did the insects. 8 flies buzzed around us during our meal and 1 wasp all landing on food and drinks. We pointed this out to staff who simply smiled and confirmed that if they don’t have windows open the restaurant is too hot for all of them whilst working and it’s not possible for us to close them. Literally just us in the restaurant at this point. We suggested perhaps some fans for the tables or a window mesh, but no avail. After eating, the dirty plates were not collected and flies continued to buzz so we moved our piles of dirty plates to the end of the table out of the way. There were no other tables in the restaurant at this time. The plates sat there for 20 odd minutes with people walking past them for a good 20 minutes and eventually a waiter then arrived casually to take the plates away very slowly and got distracted during. At this point there were no bar staff and we had to find a waiter to ask for the bill. This restaurant could be so much more, but clearly it’s not here to make a profit and it just seems so laid back that we could have left without paying. A solution is needed for the ventilation issues as it is not satisfactory to pay for a meal in a restaurant whilst fighting off the flies and wasps. The 10% service was automatically included in the bill, I have no idea what that was for, we almost served ourselves. Before the renovation the union bar was brilliant. Great service and best place for cocktails. Since it’s become The Orator I’ve not had a good experience. If you are going to create table service restaurant you need to have attentive staff and the shelves stocked. Avoid,...

I contacted the manager, Claire Hey, on Saturday, 14th December, to address the matter via email. However, after 11 days without a response, I decided to share my experience in the email I had sent to her.

Dear Claire Hey,

I am writing to share feedback regarding my wife’s and my first visit to The Orator this evening at approximately 7 PM. Unfortunately, our experience did not meet the expectations we had for your establishment, and I feel it is important to bring this to your attention.

Upon entering, we were greeted by a scene of staff moving around in what appeared to be a disorganized manner. We patiently waited in the doorway for around five minutes before being acknowledged by the host, despite another group arriving after us and also waiting. During this time, we overheard a guest inquire about being seated, only to be told they would need to wait for the host as well.

Once seated, we intended to enjoy a bottle of Prosecco and took our time studying the menu. However, after 15 minutes of waiting without any service or acknowledgement from the staff, we began to feel increasingly frustrated. During this period, we observed staff walking around seemingly disengaged and even witnessed bar staff straightening their hair in the bar mirror. This lack of professionalism was highly disappointing.

In an effort to address the situation discreetly and avoid creating a scene, I attempted to call the restaurant twice from my phone while still seated, but both calls went unanswered. At this point, it became clear that the level of service was far below acceptable standards. Feeling ignored and disheartened, we decided to leave without placing an order.

Before departing, I asked for the manager’s card and explained our experience to the host. While he was apologetic, his response did little to mitigate our frustration. As the face of your front-of-house team, his handling of the situation lacked the attentiveness and initiative one would expect in such circumstances.

We had high hopes for our visit given The Orator’s reputation and setting; however, tonight’s experience left us feeling disappointed and undervalued as guests. I hope you will take this feedback constructively and address these concerns with your team to ensure that future guests receive the level of service that reflects the quality and standards your establishment aims to uphold.

Thank you for taking the time to read this feedback. I trust that you will take appropriate action to improve the guest experience at The Orator...

We had a very disappointing experience. Having booked in advance, we were surprised that it took some time to be seated. Once we were eventually at our table, our menus didn’t arrive for around 20mins. We then waited a further 20-30mins for a waiter to take our order, and eventually gave up on this and ordered at the bar. I should add that tables around us were being visited frequently by waiters. Although it took another 15mins or so to get served at the bar, our food then did arrive relatively quickly. In fact, the food was on the table for 10mins before one of our party eventually came back with her drinks, having waited almost 30mins to be served. Luckily she wasn’t offended by cold chips!

When the waiter (who I understand was the supervisor for the evening) brought our food, he seemed surprised that we had ordered from the bar and commented that usually people opt for table service in the area where we were seated. It was hard to hide our confusion, given we had been ignored by him for so long!

Not once did anybody attempt to clear our empty glasses - there must have been 12-15 of them on the table by the time we left - or refill our water jug which had been brought to us unprompted with the menus a couple of hours earlier. Our empty food plates also sat on the table for around an hour before somebody offered to take it away.

The food itself was okay, and it’s a lovely setting. All of the staff were also very lovely when interacting with you, except they were extremely inattentive and very inefficient. The people serving at the bar were abysmally slow at every order, which was clearly irking all of the customers there - we had several conversations with people near to us. At least 4 of the beers on tap also ran dry by mid-evening, which was another disappointment.

We have visited several times before, and sadly the service has been painfully slow every time. This last visit reached a new low, however - I don’t think we’ll be back...