The Vault, Selsey — Restaurant in Chichester

Been meaning to try here for a while and called up in the week to book a table for Saturday night. Whilst booking I spoke to a lady who I asked what they could do in the way of gluten free. She listed some dishes that could be done, one of which was arancini which I was really surprised about. She told me that they make each one fresh to order and have a gf breadcrumbs they can use for coeliacs as, she said, they have a lot of gluten free customers.

Anyway, we ordered arancini x 2 (1 of each) and a scaramoza cheese to share. The chef said categorically he could not do the arancini gluten free. When I explained to the waiter what the lady has said on the phone he didn't offer anything by way of apology or explanation. I asked if they had gluten free bread to do bruschetta, he said no. I ordered the scaramoza. We cook this a lot at home and I felt that £10.50 for this dish of 3 slices of lukewarm cheese was a bit hard to swallow, excuse the pun.

For main course we both had crab pasta. I think I misheard the waiter when I ordered my gluten free one because the gf pasta was absolutely revolting. My husband said his "normal" pasta was nice but we both felt the portions were too small.

In summary For £142 we felt it was very overpriced especially as we both left hungry. £160 including service. Staff need training on gluten free options 5 menu items were not available that evening which was disappointing. Draught beer coming in only a half pint or 2 pint option is very strange. Gluten free options need changing - very good gluten free pasta is readily available in supermarkets now, as is bread. These days if you consider yourselves gf friendly not having gf bread is not really good enough. The food generally tasted good (although we felt a lot was underseasoned), and the menu was appealing (had they had all items available) All of the staff were very friendly and pleasant. Unfortunately we...

Required a £50 deposit to make reservations. On starting to head to the restaurant, saw that they were listed as closed. The hours on their website also showed them closed. As this was a business dinner, I had to scramble to find a different restaurant. Turns out the restaurant had posted their winter hours (which don’t take effect for another week) and was open, but refuses return my deposit despite the incorrect hours.

Response to La Banca’s 26 Sep response Both your website and your Google listing listed you as closed on Wednesdays after 15:00. This is the only reason we did not go to your restaurant. Google maps showed you as closed when we started navigation at 1750. You are either mistaken on when your update took place or are being deliberately deceptive. It was an imposition and embarrassment to have to relocate a business dinner 40 minutes before it was supposed to begin. Additionally, I did not receive a phone call from you. That is flat out a lie. Screen shot of my missed call log posted as part of this update. Your behavior is unprofessional and uncalled for.

I will be filing a complaint with UK...

Disappointing! We’ve been wanting to try this restaurant for a while so booked a table Saturday night in the garden as that’s all they had, but that was fine for us. When we arrived, we waited 15mins to get one menu between the four of us with the waitress who was very nice advising food would be about a 15min extra wait as they were busy (15mins was not the issue we thought at this point, but this turned out not to be correct) We then waited another 10mins before she returned to order the drinks. The drinks then finally arrived 1hour after we had walked in!! At this time we could see they had taken too many bookings for the evening, so said to the waitress we were giving up and leaving. We drunk the drinks, paid £45 for 4 drinks and then went a few doors down to the Indian as we were very hungry by this point who served us fantastically as they always do in there. We were so disappointed they had taken too many bookings and could not cope for the evening. Waiting one hour for your drinks to arrive is just not acceptable, goodness knows how long the food would have actually been,if we would have not given up on them!...