Dusty Miller — Restaurant in East Hertfordshire

Hate leaving negative reviews. But sadly yesterday me and my boyfriend came here for the 1st time arriving at 5:45 when we arrived we where seated by a lovely female member of staff (didn't catch her name sadly) We took about between 5 and 10 minutes going through the menu as we notice straight away that nearly all the food wasn't your typical pub style kind of menu. I have to confess some of the things I had to look up on Google just to see what it was. Eventually, we placed our order. We then waited almost an hour before our starter arrived at our table, making it well past 6:30pm. The female member of staff did, however, apologise and explain that they were dreadfully understaffed, being only her and the chef in with two massive deliveries turning up as well as Uber Eats orders being cooked. The starter we had was some spinach and cheese coquette thing that was burnt at the top and so crunchy too that it hurt mine and my boyfriends teeth. Once we tried to finish that off, our mains and side snacks arrived. Both our mains turned out to be awful, Mine being the Italian style burger that was smothered in pisto that all I could taste was pisto and not the burger, bacon, cheese or even the tomato. And the chips being cold and clearly McDonald's style chips, my boyfriend had some beef stuffed ravioli kind of thing in a beef broth, which he was unable to finish as it tasted awful. Our side snacks, the calamari was over cooked, rubbery and had a very strong fishy after taste, which meant the squid used was off and out of date! The only thing that was actually nice was the pork belly bites in chilli flakes with apple sauce. The meal ended up costing us £70 and no kind of refund was even offered. Once home, I then ended up being sick for the rest of the night from the bad calamari (possible food poisoning)

I would strongly suggest changing the menu back to pub classics and not what you currently have on your menu. I would also strongly suggest hiring more stuff. The female member of staff was clearly overworked, running back and forth from the bar, kitchen, and dinner area.

(Response to mangers comments) So you're saying your female member of staff is a liar, then when she said there were Uber Eat orders being cooked! Also, please then explain why me and my partner and I had to wait almost an HOUR for our starters to even arrive?! The Italian burger was smothered in pisto on both sides of the burger! If you want to use pisto, then only cover one side of the burger. A burger was a tomato, pisto, burger, cheese, bacon, pisto. I even told your female member of staff there was way too much pisto in the burger. Calamari is off when it's rubbery and has a strong fishy after taste. As I've never experienced that in other restaurants that serve calamari. Yes, we took home the pork belly bites because the other 3 iteams we took home with us we had to throw out. Those being the chips, calamari and the...

5 stars because of the lack of other decent food places in the local area. Really, any so-called food pub should be able to knock out nice food like this at a reasonable price, but because they don't (at least not round here), I give it 5 stars. However, even very simple, inexpensive menu substitutions are refused point-blank at this place, which I might understand in a very high-end restaurant where the flavours of each dish are minutely balanced... Not somewhere that does burgers or bangers and mash, however "local" they are. (Bangers and mash a bit too heavy on the fennel seed btw). I don't agree with the review that says it's over-priced, particularly considering the mass-produced slop that local chain-pubs/restaurants charge the same prices for. I will definitely eat here again, because it would hardly be any cheaper in a big chain-pub and you'd receive pre-packaged microwaved rubbish. I've never had anything less than a nice tasty meal at the DM, and I've eaten there at least half a dozen times over the past couple of years. Thought and care obviously go into their food, unlike other local pubs, the cooking of the basics is also consistently good. Anyone who thinks this place is over-priced for the quality of food/cooking would probably be happier at Wetherspoon's or Hungry Horse eating BOGOF, pet-grade, anti-biotic meat platters. Seriously, stick to McDonald's and keep your ill-informed opinion to yourself, we need to encourage places like this round here, not down-vote them just because they're a bit dearer than the...

We were a party of 6 on Christmas Day. This was a first for us, never before dined out at Christmas. To say the food was disappointing is an understatement. I am not a serial google reviewer but as my daughter’s email, sent to the establishment on the 7th January, remains unanswered, it’s time for a review. I’m not going to go into details but just to say the quality of the food was awful. Our plates were piled high, concealing soft sweet tasting roast potatoes, over cooked carrots, some of us had parsnips but not all. Stuffing and sausage meat balls were in abundance. We had grandma with us and at the age of 95 she stared at the heap of food on her plate and said “oh I didn’t think food was served piled up like this anymore”. There were no extras, apart from cheap crackers. The serving staff were fine and they were the only reason that we didn’t remove the 12.5% added to our bill. We paid the £650 and left never to return again. Our message would be to concentrate on the quality rather than...