Old Bulls Head Woodhouse Eaves — Restaurant in Charnwood

I live in Birmingham but my daughter lives in Leicester city centre. I have visited many pub / restaurants in Leicester over the last few years but none have persuaded me to become their regular return customer. So, I was still searching for somewhere new where my wife and myself could celebrate our youngsters 26th birthday on late May’s Bank Holiday Monday.

I did a search using Google maps and just by chance hit upon this place located in a place I had never heard of before, ie. Woodhouse Eaves. It had some good sounding Reviews so I booked a table for the 3 of us.

What a lovely place I thought as I entered this unknown to me Leicestershire Village and on entering The Bulls Head its interior certainly enhanced my expectancy that this choice was going to be one of my better decisions.

All 3 of us have very different tastes in food or drinks that we prefer. My daughter loves trying different types of Cocktails and non Spicy Food, my wife loves trying out English draught beers and will literally eat “anything” (including very Spicy food) and as a Driver I make sure I always drink a low / non Alcohol “my own drivers drink” (developed over many years of experimenting) but not all Bars have what I prefer and also I am a Vegetarian (but I eat Seafood, so a ?).

So, firstly the Bar satisfied our wide and very diverse drinking preferences “so a big thumbs up from all 3 of us”.

After being seated Alexandra introduced herself and said she would take all our food and refill drinks orders. We carefully studied our food choices (as we like to share each other’s food dishes, eg. for appetisers /starters, main course and desserts) whenever we eat together.

So, we ordered two Starters “to share”, Squid and the Mushroom dishes. Both were Delicious.

For main course, my daughter chose Chicken, my wife the Pasta with the King Prawn (+ the Scallops extra option) and I chose the Salad (+ the Sea Bass extra option). My Salad dish was so plentiful that I was able to give half of it away to be shared. In turn my wife shared some of her King Prawns and 1 Scallop with me. My daughter was not quite so generous but I did manage to pinch 2 chips from her plate. All 3 main course dish’s were simply delicious and my Salad was the best Salad dish I have ever been served, just great.

For our dessert we just picked the Trio selection and all 3 tasted just fantastic (and there was just enough for all 3 of us to taste and enjoy EACH of these 3 small, BUT very delicious desserts). Just a great choice for our 3 very different and varied taste buds.

In our 2 hours being seated my wife had tried several beers and drank 5 Pints and was well satisfied and my daughter 3 different Cocktails and was also very happy on her birthday. For myself I was just so very happy that after years of searching around Leicestershire at long, long last I had found a place that truly made our Family meal together so, very, very enjoyable and all 3 of us so very happy and satisfied.i could not be happier with my Salad main course choice (with the Sea Bass, King Prawn and delicious Scallop). Wow.

We are already planning two return visits. First on Saturday, 15th June (a day before Fathers Day) and we will then return for my wife’s birthday on Sunday, 21st July to sample this places well Reviewed Sunday Roast Dinners that I am sure my wife and daughter both being BIG meat eaters will enjoy BUT also I feel confident my Vegetarian option will be delicious also.

What a great place located in a lovely Leicestershire village. I highly recommended. The Old Bulls Head to anyone reading my Review. Just the best Pub meal all 3 of us could remember...

What was supposed to be a lovely anniversary meal turned into a very awkward night due to staff. We had booked the table online and were excited to go because of the great reviews. We chose the Christmas menu 3 course meal in the restaurant. When we arrived at 7.30pm the table wasn't ready which was understandable because it was a busy evening, so we had a drink at the bar, the woman at the bar was really nice and the drinks really well made. When we returned to the server to ask about the table at 8pm, we watched her scrambling to set a table in the area near the bar with two other tables. We were a little disappointed as we wanted to be in the restaurant area and the table felt like the bar area. When we ordered the server seemed very unsure about how the 3 course deal worked, we were told we could have red wine as the drink but later told we couldn't. We ordered all three courses at once but the server left the table before we could order the cocktail that came with it. The starter came out super quickly, we both had scallops, the food was amazing! We couldn't fault the food throughout the night. After the mains we were told the deserts we ordered 1 hour and a half ago had suddenly ran out even though we saw other tables recieve the same desert they had ran out of. I was so disappointed as we had ordered it at the start of the evening, I would understand if we were told when we ordered it it had ran out but not an hour and a half after ordering it. We both ordered the white chocolate creme brulee and given large desert spoons which seemed wrong for a small delicate dish. At this time we asked about ordering the cocktails and the waitresses looked bewildered and went to ask who we assumed was the manager which she had done several times on our orders that evening. It was at this point we started to feel unwelcome. After we recieved our drinks they were quick to clear our deserts, all other tables around us were empty and it was about 9.30pm. We watched the staff flap about with getting boxes of Christmas decorations out and watching the manager loudly instruct staff on what she wanted doing. We watched in disbelief when they started dragging tables around us and organising set up for the next day around us. We felt incredibly in the way of them setting up and the nice relaxed vibe was killed by the very hectic rush around by the staff to move tables and set up for what we figured out was breakfast with santa the next morning. We rushed our drinks and paid the bill to get out the way and in the time it took us to leave our table and sit in the bar they had already started moving our table about which confirmed the feeling of the staff wanting us to move. We felt really rushed and unimportant, what was supposed to be a special night for us was ultimately ruined. We left and had a much nicer drink at the pear tree where we received a very warm welcome and lovely service by their staff, even 15 minutes to their closing time they were far more accommodating than the appalling service we received from the bulls head. I had sent this review to their review system and asked for someone to contact me regarding the situation but it has yet to be resolved after a week. So...

Great food and fantastic setting as always, as frequent visitors we always have a great time, we visited this evening as it was a birthday treat and we received a great offer from you… that being said it started badly and went down hill the entire time after? Firstly upon our arrival we stood waiting with no one in sight to welcome and seat us , whilst waiting ( 5 minutes or so) we were admiring a little dog with the customer sat on a nearby table, then out of the blue your manager stood up from that table and just said follow me ?? Why keep us waiting so long when you were sat looking at us the entire time? Once seated we were asked by a waiter if we would like drinks ( as expected). We ordered but no drinks arrived ? So we had to order again and received these drinks around 10 minutes after which in itself isn’t bad however you were not exactly busy , Another 20 minutes and another waiter asked if we are ready to order , our order went in and the starter came out but only one ? My husband had to wait another few minutes for different waitress to bring his starter , the wait from starter to main was exactly 22 minutes which is quite a long wait between courses , ( as a side note , maybe you should teach your staff to serve from the correct side of the customer rather than leaning over to collect glasses etc, and dropping our mains off on the table next to us skipping off giggling isn’t really acceptable) However whilst we were waiting we had a long time to look around and see that it wasn’t just us but the few tables that were taken were having similar problems and have to ask for service, menu’s etc. Finally a waiter came to ask if we wanted deserts ??? My god this isn’t your usual standards . We are , paid snd left immediately afterwards rather than staying at the bar as usual . It’s my belief that in order to keep your reputation you will need to hire appropriate staff, your young manageress was young and very much concerned with ensuring that your even younger waiting staff was happy with her , allowing female waitress’s to hang around the isles chatting , racing and pulling each other or having the male and female staff walking around hand in hand is simply horrendous considering what your clients are there for ?

We were lucky and because it was my birthday we only paid for my husbands food and our drinks , however should this have not been our offer then quite frankly we would have left before we had even had our drinks finally arrive , Nearly 2 1/2 hours for service in a relatively quite night is unsatisfactory but that was the best thing that your establishment offered last night , I don’t expect a night out in a quality restaurant to be marred my childish waiting staff and a manageress who is more concerned about taking her staff to quite corners for chats and hugs ?? Over the years we have visited your pub/house on a weekly/fortnightly basis as you should well be aware of ? However we will never be visiting again and will certainly informing anyone who asks about the very bad antics and poor service we received from your underage and under...