The Bistro at Dunston Hall Estates — Restaurant in Chesterfield

Visited twice now but don't think I've seen it at it's best yet.

The first visit was on a Tuesday morning at about 10.45. Had a short wait whilst someone came to show us where we could sit. We chose to sit outside, although the weather wasn't good, because the noise inside was too much!! So loud you could hardly hear yourself think! But the outside is pleasant. Half of it is covered. There is also a children's play area. My friend went inside to order but eventually came back to say that the 'system' was down so they weren't taking any orders at all! ?? Somewhat miffed we decided to go and look round the garden centre but as we were leaving someone had apparently come up with an amazing idea!!! They could use pen and paper to take orders!!! Wow! We only wanted coffee and cake! How many orders did they lose before going back to the old fashioned way?

The second visit was a Monday afternoon at about 3 o'clock. Although we could see that it was busy not all the tables were being used. Even so, customers were queuing out of the door , waiting to be seated!! No thank you! We left. What's with the having to be shown to a table lark? Isn't it obvious whether a table is being used or not??🤷🏼‍♀️

But, apart from that, the staff were pleasant and it is beautifully decorated (if noisy ) and the new farm shop is also worth a visit.

I will give it one more go as, on paper, it really should be the perfect place for lunch with friends or a quick coffee and cake. Hopefully I'll be able to...

Appalling service, not that we actually got any.

We advised the lady at the door that we’d only like coffee and cake rather than lunch, to which we were told that’s fine and showed to a table, a very cramped table that could be half the size smaller so that you can actually sit comfortably in the comfortable chairs, and told someone will be over to take our order.

This is when it went down hill, I went and looked to see what cakes they had and upon asking a woman at the counter a question about one of them, she looked at me like I’d spat in her face and begrudgingly answered my question. I went back to the huge water lily pad sized table and waited, and waited, and waited, after twice asking people who were clearing tables if they’d take our order to which again I was told someone will be with you soon, we have up and left. The woman who had originally seated us saw us leaving and said “that was quick?” so we had to tell her that we had been ignored for nearly 20 minutes without anyone taking our order or even speaking to us. All we got in return was an “oh” no apology or anything.

I have been here once before a few years ago and it was as different again which is why we thought we’d try it, that and a friend has a new job here and raves about the place, sadly for us this was not the case and we will not be returning, nor would we...

We visited here today for breakfast .we waited 10 mins before anyone came to the table . We ordered our breakfast we ordered one vegetarian breakfast with poached egg I ordered one dry toast and marmalade due to diary intolerance . we waited over 40 minutes the breakfast arrived with no egg on the breakfast when we asked about the poached egg they said they didn’t put egg on a vegan breakfast but we ordered a vegetarian breakfast it did say on the menu and we had already order a poached egg . They did bring us an egg after we had asked for one . My toast came with butter on it and I asked for it dry as we have intolerance to diary luckily I asked if it had butter on it and it had .they did replace the toast and I asked again for dry toast but it came back out with margarine on it which I don’t eat . I had asked for marmalade and got strawberry jam so fortunately I only have intolerance to diary and not an allergy as this could have been much more serious. The coffee was nice but the tea wasn’t hot...