High Flyer — Restaurant in East Cambridgeshire

Visited here last week for our anniversary. This was an evening booking for 6pm, but for the first hour or so we were the only ones in there which felt a bit lonely. The decor and layout was very nice and modern looking. The lady with long dark hair who took our drinks, who I believe to be the manager or supervisor as she wasn't in uniform, was professional but not particularly friendly or welcoming. Once she had took our food order she didn't say anything and just walked off which was a bit unusual. I ordered the bbq chicken melt and my partner had the 1/2 chicken. The meals were really good quality, very tasty and piping hot. Pretty good portion size too. Really great flavours, and the coleslaw was especially nice. However, when it came to ordering desserts this is where it was a real let down and service became quite bad.... On the menu there is a toffee apple crumble, chocolate brownie, toffee apple crumble sundae and chocolate brownie sundae. A different girl came over to take this order, who we had previously interacted with when she brought over our meals and she was friendly. My partner opted to have the chocolate brownie sundae and I opted for the toffee apple crumble sundae. A few minutes after these were ordered, she came back and said that they don't have either dessert and did we want to pick something else. I clarified with her that I'm guessing that would also mean the chocolate brownie and toffee apple crumble wasn't available either; as these are the main ingredients in each of the sudaes I figured they must be out of brownie and toffee apple crumble all together. She said yes that was correct, so 4 desserts on the menu unavailable. Not ideal but we thought fair enough, and told her we didn't want anything else and asked for the bill. A few minutes passed and then a chef brought over a chocolate brownie sundae to our table. We were really confused by this and said we didn't order that. He seemed very disbelieving of this which was rude! We explained to him that we were told that there was no toffee apple crumble or brownie, which meant these desserts were unavailable, along with the toffee apple crumble sundae and brownie sundae. He then proceeded to say that was incorrect, and that they DO have chocolate brownie, so the chocolate brownie and chocolate brownie sundae WAS available. We firmly said this is not what we were told and eventually he accepted that we were accidently told wrong. He then quite grumpily asked if we wanted to keep the brownie sundae, to which we said no. Then when the bill came, we were shocked to see there was a 10% optional service charge added on! Could not see this stipulated anywhere on the menu or the website (I have also since rechecked the menus on the website and can't see it) but even if we had seen this before hand and knew of it in advance, I would still not have agreed to pay it as I don't believe it is right to try and pressure customers to pay extra. I know it is optional, but businesses do this as a way to make customers feel awkward about asking for it to removed, so most customers feel pressured to pay it even if they don't want to. This doesn't feel fair, even if the service and food is brilliant, I personally think tipping should be personal choice. Therefore, I asked for the service charge to be removed, which was done, but we were asked if this was due to the issue with desserts. It was in part, but not just that, like I said I don't think service charges are a good way to run a business and it can discourage customers from returning. I would like to stipulate that my issue isn't with the girl who got it wrong about the desserts; she just made a mistake and it's easily done, she was actually the only friendly staff member we encountered to be honest! The biggest let down was the way the chef spoke to us and the the service charge. After the issues with the desserts and service charge, we went up the road to Wildwood pizza & pasta bar and had some really nice desserts in there instead where the staff and service was...

Having ordered simply an orange and lemonade and some fish cakes. I can hand on heart say the only thing that met the standard of bang in the middle of the road average was the orange and lemonade.

We were in and seated before the lunchtime rush.

The service was inattentive and definitely not warming or welcoming. God help you if you have an allergy, a staff member who didn’t know what to do and then an elusive staff member who took far too long to return with an answer. Paying the gratuity rolled into the bill felt like an absolute piss take given the 4 sentences of interaction had with the staff.

Onto the food. For those old enough to remember flash backs of late 90’s school meals is a close description. Just with a 40min wait time and no monkey bars to play on.

Let’s break the meal down properly though. Considering Iv had the joys of playing loo tennis after this frankly appalling meal. The fish cakes, were clearly frozen and part cooked before serving and then thrown into a fryer before making its way to the plate. They lacked taste in general and had a large water content not to be confused with fish being moist and properly cooked this was not that.

Buttery mash potatoes. Well when you add butter to mash potatoes it takes on a lovely yellow tone and has a certain richness to it. What was on the plate was soft white goop. Blander than the fish cakes which takes which takes some doing. Cutting corners and adding milk and water as opposed to butter some what of a let down given the menu described.

The parsley sauce was splitting by the time it was served. Occasionally you got a hit of parsley but more concerning was the random and very over powering hits of lemon that at least added some degree of flavour to the experience.

However the absolute star of the show for ineptitude in the kitchen was the vegetable medley. With elements being so over cooked it crumbled off the fork like a well cooked lamb shank….which I doubt would be found at this institute and other elements could only have been more under cooked had I dug them from a farmers field and tucked in there and then. Another impressive feat as the vegetables on the plate looked incredibly similar to the bags of mixed frozen veg available from your local Iceland.

Waste of time and money. I hope someone sees this and takes a serious look at what’s going on in that kitchen because honestly I could have made the same meal for less in the same time frame and at least dodged the wildly upset stomach that...

We stood in a queue on the way in, people traffic was going in and out, very disorganised and uncomfortable, there was a new Manager on the desk, we were asking questions and she wasn’t responding, it was very odd, she walked away with no communication, we didn’t know if we should follow or stay where we were, it was really confusing because there was just no response from her?? she walked away, cleaned a table and told showed us to our table which was opposite the service station, cutlery was being cleaned and thrown into their place, it was super loud, we asked if we could be reseated, the Manager told the member of staff odd in front of us for being too loud! It was just her job which we understood it was just a bad place to be seated in terms of the noise.

We were moved, a wonderful waitress came to get our drinks but unfortunately that took ages and we had to prompt to ask if the drinks were coming.

Nobody told us what to do we sat waiting for service, when the waitress came up we were asked if we knew what to do, which I’d course we didn’t. We were then further advised that the gas had gone on the kitchen so we could only have carvery which threw off our initial order, so carvery it was.

There was no one at the carvery desk to cut the meat, the waitress had to go and find someone, the cauliflower cheese was dried up, I had to ask for it to be replaced, there was no condiments ( ie salt and pepper) on the table, the table was sticky, cleaning efforts are poor, it like a noisy cattle market, one in and one out.

To be fair the food was nice I only ate a very small amount I just couldn’t stomach it and for that reason I was only charged for a child menu which was very thoughtful and something I didn’t expect or prompt.

This restaurant is very badly managed, it was a mess from start to finish to be fair, absolute chaos, it’s not a relaxed meal out or a treat it’s stressful and I won’t be going back, I am unable to recommend the dish I would have chosen as the kitchen was closed so very much dictated as to...