The Prince of Wales — Restaurant in Elmbridge

We turned up Saturday without a booking and was initially grateful to be seated for lunch. The bulk (95%) of the menu is a very run of the mill pub menu with nothing really interesting or special or different offered. I was disappointed with the menu, but managed to find a soft shell crab burger which seemed different to the usual fare offered. When the waitress took my order it came up 'unavailable'; she offered to inquire with the kitchen why (I did not ask her to as I didn't want to cause a fuss; if it's not available, it's not available). She returned and said it wasn't available as they did not have the ingredients to make it. Ok. Fine. So I picked something else for the sake of ordering something, and again to my surprise and annoyance, it too came up as 'unavailable'. She then went off to make inquires as to why the two meals I wanted were not available. She came back and said it was her fault for giving me the incorrect menu - she had given us the weekday menu and not the Saturday one. Why did it take 2 orders of 'unavailable' food before some else (not her) to realise she had given us the incorrect menu? She had failed to come to that realisation herself... Poor training? Not focused..? Poor service. The thing that also struck me was that she was very matter-of-fact about giving us the incorrect menu and her tone was anything but 'sorry' dispite the words coming from her mouth. I spoke to the manager about this incident and she was dismissive and kept on repeating that 'it was an honest mistake' over and over again and clearly not able to recognise that incidents like these reflect poorly on the business. The attitude of these two servers reeked of lack of accountability. We also had to ask two different servers for tomato sauce as none was delivered when we first asked when the food was brought out, but by then our expectations were low and this level of service seemed to be the norm. I settled on a boring Ceasar salad which was was sub-par (two green lettuce leaves - the rest were all yellow or white inside leaves and shredded chicken instead of pieces of chicken. The dressing was bland). My son had the kids cheese burger and his feedback was 'it was lukewarm, dry and overcooked.' Even my 7 y.o could recognise sub par food. One star for the really lovely well designed refurbishment - I really admire how each area was different to the other areas with different character and charm, but this was overshadowed by the poor quality of service and food. Not recommended for food and especially the service and will not go here again. I should have read the reviews before going - 3.8 stars...

This pub certainly looks amazing and inviting after its retrofit, and the interior decor is stunning ... but unfortunately the food was a great disappointment for us. Two of us ordered the baked aubergine, which had the thickest, toughest skin I've ever had the misfortune to eat – to the point where it was actually too thick for my Dad to eat, so he was left trying to scrape the flesh off the skin ... without much success. Additionally, aside from a few blobs of sauces, some herbs and pea shoots, that was basically all this dish consisted of – no extra sides or anything, just an aubergine cut in half and roasted.

Like one of the other reviewers also stated, vegetarian (or in this case vegan) dishes can be sensational culinary experiences, bursting with incredible flavours, dishes that leave you satisfied and full ... but all too often, the ingredients are put together without much thought or imagination. This dish sounded intriguing on the menu, but it really didn't deliver, or fill us up – not surprising given the main ingredient was one small aubergine!

To help fill us up, we ordered a side of skinny chips, but they were incredibly over-salted – all 3 of our party felt the same, so it wasn't just personal taste. So we told the waitress the chips were inedibly salty and asked for an unsalted portion. A long 20 minutes later they finally arrived, and they tasted very nice, as they should have tasted to start with ... but we had all finished eating the rest of our food by then.

To my surprise when it came to pay the bill, we'd been billed for two lots of chips ... I would have thought telling them the first portion was inedible and that we wanted them to be replaced would have given them the hint that we weren't satisfied with them, and so wouldn't be expectied to pay for them! After requesting a refund for the first portion, I also asked for the 12.5% tip to be removed from the bill as I didn't feel the dining experience was worth it. That said, we did tip our waitress separately in cash as she was faultless and very apologetic for the quality of the food ... although she did mention in passing that the aubergine was never very popular so they were removing it from the menu ... maybe some staff should have tried eating it to find out why it was so unpopular!

Oh and finally, both the toilets in the gents were blocked up and on the verge of overflowing so we reported this on the way out.

We will not be returning again soon sadly, not until the vegetarian food (and even something as simple as correctly-seasoned chips) has had a serious and...

Still the same or even worse, give it a miss.

Decided to give the new place a try, we booked a table, so all set for an evening out. Parked the car in the car park so entered via the rear entrance, we had to walk through the whole pub looking for someone to seat us, nobody could be found, the old desk with a real person ready to greet you gone. Queued at the bar to ask the serving staff what to do when my wife noticed a bar table with menus on so we hung around that for a while, getting board a waitress walked past and we stopped her to ask when we should do at which point she went into to dinning area and asked one of the 3 staff standing around to see to us. I was asked my name and the person looked up my booking and the three of us showed a table for 2!!!! I remarked that I had booked for 3, and it would be nice to sit on a table for 3, so we sat at a tabled for 4. After about 10 minutes we made a gesture to one of the 3 staff still standing around and one came over, I asked what beers they had and I was showen the wine list that had a page on beers, having read it I asked what bitters they had and was told that all they had was on the list, asking if the draft was dark I was told it was and ordered that. When the drinks arrived I was given a light IPA ok better than nothing a plate with Olivers was placed o the table, nice touch but was taken off again and put on the next table. We asked why and told the wrong table .. we ordered the food. This was to be a theme. 4 times food was placed on our table meant for another table, and it became a bit of a joke to our visitor from Hong Kong, whom we had taken out. Our mains arrived, and we had a shock at the size of the portions. I had the fish pie, and it was tiny with more salmon than the advertised seafood. We finished our mains and asked for the desert menu, after about 20 minutes I asked again if we could have a desert menu and after a while one came and when I say one it was one for the 3 of us to share. At this point, we decided to give up on a bad job and asked for the bill and left. On the way out I sat that they did Tea beer on draft but was not advertised on the menu, the staff did not bother to check with the bar on what was on offer, the did add a 12% service charge for I don't know what as I think the service was awful. We will not be rushing back, a real shame as we used to love the place and used it ofter. I vote find somewhere else to eat, it was very embarrassing for us taking our visitor to this place and only stayed just over na hour and a half we had...