Bill's Cardiff Central Restaurant — Restaurant in Castle

We had dinner here to conclude our visit to Cardiff. The experience at Bill's started with a strange response to our request or sit outside. It was a lovely, spring evening and there was seating available but "no one is serving outside". Does the staff have an issue? I don't understand the difficulty in taking orders and walking it 10ft outside the door?

We, a party of 2, were seated and the seating area is well maintained. It was quite tight with tables close together. We gave our drinks menu with an additional request for some tap water for the table. The peach ice tea had a great taste and made me feel like I was back home.

Unfortunately, the waitress didn't bring the water, so we had to ask again. A minor annoyance but that's what loses tips, more on that later.

We tried the cheese fondue sharing starter and this was okay. The side salad had no dressing, seasoning, not even a drop of olive oil. Just the veg on the side. The cheese fondue was tasty, although I would suggest using an actual bowl and having more bite size pieces. The majority of it was pretty tough, even for me and I'm someone who likes things crunch. I wouldn't recommend it as it currently is.

We made this reservation because of the fish pie. My partner was looking forward to this all afternoon. Our reservation was at 19:00 and dinner starts at 17:00. When making our order, they were out of fish pie.

My partner is a manager in hospitality and understands the importance of ordering enough popular stock for a shift. It was 2 hours into dinner service. Quite disappointing indeed. Instead, the two way chicken was ordered and this was not good. The grilled chicken left a sour, burnt after taste. I even tried some to be sure it wasn't just being fussy and it was bad, even for a barbecue guy. This restaurant seems to dislike basic seasoning and flavours. A bland taste and the sauce served was extremely thin and watery.

I ordered the meatballs because I read that others enjoyed them. They tasted good, a nice spice with the warm sauce and mozzarella. The fried potato was the best I've ever tasted. Remember I like things crunchy? Everything piece, was a crispy one. I loved them and the mayo was nice for dipping. If everything was like my main then it would be 5 stars for food but that just wasn't the case.

The atmosphere was okay. The music selection was amazing, some classic bangers. But the noise was pretty high. Not much of an atmosphere, more like music breaking through a consistent noise. It feels like the atmosphere could be improved by reducing the number of seating.

Lastly, is when the bill came. There was an optional tip added of 12.5%. Two drinks, one share starter, two mains came to £50, so that's actually an extra 60% on top of the assumed minimum wage. Since the only extra work for our table was to get water and then forgot, there's no way that's gonna fly. 60% more work than what is expected as a minimum was not done for us that evening, but I have no issue in them trying.

What I have the most issue with is the method of retrieval. The waitress entered a number into the card machine and then presented it to me, while facing the screen away. It's clearly a common practice to emotional guilt trip customers by including this tip by default and then expecting people to tap their money away.

I had to actually say "show me the amount". She included the tip so I then said "take off the tip, please". The audacity to exploit people's politeness is overwhelming. I was ready to have the machine ask and quickly decline but instead got a slight of hand trick that needed calling out? Anyone choosing to go here, watch out for that one.

Overall the service was okay. The food averaged as okay with my godly fried potato and my partner's bland chicken and runny, I don't even know... Maybe it was a gravy? And the atmosphere was okay. Too loud to have a...

My very underwhelming not so Greek salad. I was split between the Greek salad or burger but after asking the waitress about the portion size was convinced to go with the salad. With a price tag of £13.95 and description of a range of flavoursome ingredients, I was expecting a tasty, jam packed satisfying salad. The salad consisted of 80% watermelon and gem lettuce. I tried to distribute the few crumbs of feta cheese so I could have some substance throughout the meal, however, the portion was so meagre that most of my mouthfuls were just watermelon and lettuce. There was an occasional tasty burst of flavour from a toasted seed but seems like they were added just as a tease. The phantom mint ingredient was nowhere to be found but I did come across some basil leaves? The lettuce was limp and discoloured in places and the whole thing didn’t look very appetising. Their only saving grace was that I was really hungry! I did mention to the waitress when asked about our meal, that I thought the kitchen had held back on the feta cheese. She looked a bit perplexed, maybe she didn’t understand what I said but she didn’t inquire further. Perhaps because I wasn’t making an outright complaint but just answering her question honestly, she didn’t know how to process it. The seating was very tight, packed like sardines but I tried to overlook this as a cosy warm environment and me and my friends could still have a good conversation and giggle comfortably. Overall, I felt ripped off and just another classic experience of eating at a chained restaurant where they squeeze every penny from you but don’t give you what you pay for. On top of this they tried to charge a huge service fee. You pay by scanning the code on the table, the charge is automatically added and you have to ‘ask service staff to have it removed’. Did we hell. This seemed like a ploy to pressure you into paying charges for non existent service. Call me old fashioned but a tip isn’t a guarantee its dependent on the actual experience as a whole. If service staff need to earn more then it should be out of their employers pocket who let’s remember are charging £14 for a bed of salad leaves...

Called in on a quiet Wednesday night, looking for a table just for me. Was shown to a 2 seater table tucked out of the way. I knew what I wanted as this was not my first visit to a Bill's. Ordered my meal, and my drink straight away, and waited for the food. The food arrived within 5 minutes. The young lad placed the food down and asked if I wanted any sauces. He seemed disinterested. I asked where Chipotle mayo was, which is normally in a small bowl on the side. "It's on the burger." I mentioned that it should be an accompaniment to which I was told, "You have to ask for it to be on the side... news to me.

I opened up the burger, and the chicken was lukewarm but cooked so much it was dry and tasteless. The bun was also cold, and the fries were lukewarm and tasteless (no rosemary seasoning). I ended up eating a few mouthfuls before I couldn't stomach it anymore. I sat there with the plate pushed to the side for about 15 mins before the head waitress came over. "All finished?" Yes, I replied, and before I had a chance to say anything, she turned and walked away. I asked for the bills. She presented this with a 12.5% service charge, which I promptly asked to be removed.

The service was poor. No one asked if the meal was OK, and they certainly weren't rushed off their feet. Would I recommend this Bill's, no. There are far better...