Sam's Montpellier — Restaurant in Cheltenham

Unfortunately, the concept really doesn't work, and food was pretty poor. Let me substantiate:

1. 'Small plates' should be called inconsistent plates. The pig cheeks was 2 mouthfuls, but the lamb shoulder was a full main. The food didn't really lend itself to sharing, and after 2 dishes, we were somewhat full but not satisfied.
2. Steak - drowning in oil, the salsa verde style sauce on it tasted like it had mint in it, and to top it off, covered in flaked almonds.
3. The following courses were a first for me, over sweetened! The demi glace style sauce on the lamb shoulder was as sweet as a port. The Pancetta with eggs & Coleslaw tasted like it had half a bottle of honey on it. The pig cheeks the same. Actually left me feeling sick.
4. The Sea Bream (I think it was Bream), was served on a bed of spiralised sweet potato, novel, but tasteless nonsense.
5. Chocolate Mousse was inedible, bitter, poor quality chocolate I fear the cause. No excuses in this day and age, especially when charging £8.
6. Service, whilst they were responsive, lacked any basic trainign. Cutlery was just put in the corner of the table for us to dish out ourselves.

2 stars because the wine was good, the decor is nice, and atmosphere was OK.

All in all, as a local resident I had high hopes for this, but fundamentally the concept is poor, and cooking not...

Imaginative and beautifully cooked small to medium plates in an informal bar-restaurant atmosphere.

Sam’s works rather like a tapas bar: you choose however many plates you want to share or enjoy on your own, and they arrive as and when ready. We arrived a little early and were entertained by Robert at the bar, while he somehow managed to simultaneously mix cocktails and ensure the many drinks orders were fulfilled.

In fact, all the staff with whom we interacted were excellent and clearly well trained.

I have some food intolerances which are, unfortunately, worsening as I grow older. In most restaurants, I explain carefully that I mustn’t eat any onion or garlic. They promise to check; yet, as often as not, I still get dishes where the onion is visible, let alone what is concealed in sauces or minced ingredients. And then I am unwell, sometimes for days.

Here it was different. Although the restaurant was very busy, Sam came out of the kitchen to sit with us and to annotate every option on the menu, noting which could be amended to meet my needs, which were fine for me as they were, and which were, unfortunately, off-limits. Brilliant, and I was able to enjoy our excellent meal without worrying that I would be, in effect, poisoned.

I can’t fault...

Excellent food but way too little of it. I think they are going for "fine dining" but it's way off that standard with the food, the atmosphere, and the service.

The service was perfectly friendly, but it wasn't at the fine dining level. The prices were, however, and there was barely any food for the money.

Enjoy a bowl of 10 chips. 11 if you're lucky. Don't get me wrong; they were exquisitely tasty chips, but they would do little to fill up a hamster, let alone a human.

The outside seating was supposed to be "shabby chic" but it was just shabby. Tables so wobbly you can't lean on them for fear of knocking drinks over. Cigarette butts all over the ground even though we were the first customers in for dinner.

There's some really inventive dishes on the menu, but the menu looks like it was produced by someone who had never used Microsoft Word before. A jumbled mess of font sizes and spacing, to the extent where it's not really clear sometimes what you're ordering.

I get what they're going for, but that ain't it. Either up the portion sizes and drop the fine dining persona, or embrace it and have a dress code, proper service, and for the love of God pay a graphic designer to sort...