The Tavern — Restaurant in Cheltenham

Obviously trying hard to be trendy - so dark you can barely see and music too loud so you can barely hear each other. Food served on trendy metal trays.

We had booked, which was lucky as they were busy. Our waiter guy seemed really nice, with a trendy beard and trendy floppy hair. The menus looked interesting, they were on trendy brown wrapping paper, written in that trendy font off of Pitt Cue Co.

Sadly nobody had mentioned the stuff they had sold out of, which unfortunately seemed to be most things we tried to order. The waitress lady kept just telling us that they had been busier than they expected, which I can understand, but they could have told us before hand.

The menu itself could be better written - "Burnt End" "Bone Marrow" and "Roasted Garlic" were all apparently types of mash. This wasn't obvious, at all, especially as there was already a mash on the menu. Also, the "T-Bone Steak" turned out to be pork, which out waitress did tell us, but I was surprised.

Whilst waiting for our food to arrive we were given some trendy popcorn, but for some reason it had been flavoured with loads of paprika. Just paprika. An odd choice, as paprika on its own is super metallic tasting. An idea - make a quick paprika tasting spice mix with some brown sugar, smoked salt, paprika, garlic powder and chili powder. You'll get that paprika flavour and smell, but without the metallic flavour.

My starter was sticky chicken wings. A lovely alternative to either hotwings or BBQwings. Really tasty, well cooked and they arrived really, really hot. Great work!

Someone else in our party had Mussels, half of which hadn't opened. I'm not sure why Chef sent them out.

The T-Bone, £34 for two people to share was overcooked and dry, yet the rind hadn't been adequately rendered at all. It did have a nice sage flavour though. Really, it was too small for two people to share too and lacked any sort of wow factor. I, without any doubt, could have done it better at home.

One person in our party had the burger, she thought it was a pretty good burger and maybe worth the £10 had we been in London.

The fries were so, so bland.

For dessert most of us had the PB&J with IceCream. It arrived in a sort of scrambled egg. It was very odd and non of us ate it. We did complain about this as all of us felt it was too horrible to eat. Waiter guy apologised and then a bit later owner man/manager came over to ask us about it. He had checked with the chef who felt that the new boy had perhaps had the oven on too hot? Anyway, he offered us some post dinner liqueur which was a nice offer.

The service couldn't have been slower. It was almost like a joke. 15 minutes we waited for 3 cans of beer and 2 pints of cider, most of that time waiter guy was hanging out by the till not doing much. Never have I had slower service. The complimentary liqueurs took about as long to arrive too.

We did ask not to pay the 10% service charge. Whilst the service was generally very friendly, it was abysmally slow. More staff training, I think.

Also, on a Saturday night, in what appears to be a restaurant, they have a DJ. Why?

I'd not go back and I'd never recommended it to friends, which is a shame, because from the menu, this place...

I'm hesitant to recommend the Tavern. On the one hand, the food has always been fantastic, especially the burgers. One the other hand, in the past few months, we have had some terrrrible service (emphasis on the rrrr).

Firstly, on one occassion, we were forgotten about and left sitting over an hour, waiting for our order to be taken (after flagging down so many waiters and having them tell me they'll "be right there") while EVERY SINGLE empty TABLE around us was seated, ordered, and had started their desserts by the time we had our Starter order taken. It was absolutely farcical and the only reason we didn't get up and leave was because we wanted to see how many times we could ask for service before we actually received any. This might sound like an exaggeration, but I am being completely serious here - it was that bad.

Another visit, we finally had our drinks order taken only to be told they had run out of Coke on-tap and they had no bottles left either. Diet coke was touted as a good alternative - "you can hardly taste the difference!" That's like going in for heart surgery, being told the surgeons all left early to get drunk at the pub, and being offered Blood-Letting with Leeches as a viable alternative. I simply went next door to Charles Takeaway and bought a bottle there for a third of the price - which is the first thing I'd have offered to do if I was the manager. I mean, come on, it's the most popular soft drink on earth, surely it would occur to someone that it might be a good idea to stock soft drinks before a dinner service.

Anyway, to sum up: Love the food, but sometimes the service... Isn't service. Then again, sometimes it's really great if you happen to have the right server. If the Tavern could ask their staff to be super-attentive and ensure they're well stocked in the food/beverage departments I'd...

I would firstly like to say that I don't write many reviews on places I have visited, but thought a few things needed mentioning on this visit. We booked a table for 12.45 and arrived at 12.30, we're seated no problem, but my wife was sat in direct sunlight which was hurting her eyes, so we asked politely to be moved to another table. Which eventually we were, felt like we were a nuisance. Anyway we brushed that off. And ordered the sharing Sunday lunch which looked lovely. And we had read other reviews which said so. It arrived and to be honest it was just warm , would have liked it hotter. Especially as it was sat on a board and with no other ways of keeping it warm. The food itself didn't seem to have any seasoning and tasted boring, I wish to point out that I have had Sunday lunches at many different places and this tasted bland, I added salt but didn't make much difference. The beef was raw for me and my wife, I like medium beef not pink would be nice to have been given a choice. The carrot was split lengthways so we had a carrot between us, same as the parsnip. The pig in blanket was a bit enimic. 3 things which were lovely...the roast potatoes, the cauliflower cheese and the pork, although would have also been nice to have crackling on the pork. I went didn't like the looks of the chicken so didn't try that. We also felt a little rushed and a slightly not a ease, because the waitress seemed abrupt and not overly friendly, although she did seem happier to talk about the oysters etc...which were being served. We asked for the service charge to be removed and also suggested that the food could have been hotter. The drinks were nice, negroni lovely, espresso martini nice bit costly wine nice. Don't think we will be going back. But would be nice if this review could...