The Wheatsheaf — Restaurant in Elmbridge

Never again! Literally words cannot describe how bland this experience was, not to mention the service and the enthusiasm or complete lack off I should say from the staff! Why would would even hire people who clearly don't want to be there is beyond me! First and foremost, book for 3 of us and a highchair (specified in booking notes as asked), get there show us to the table, my 2.5 year old daughter holding my hand......"Do you have a high chair please...?" "Oh you need a high chair let me see if we have one" ( with 4 stacked in a doorway behind the bar) We are then squeezed into the smallest space in-between a load of filled tables when the other side of the pub was empty, my daughter's an angel but as a courtesy to others if it was me I would accommodate a child in a slightly more secluded spot in order to make everyone more comfortable! It's was circa 1:30 at this point, so I quickly scanned the kids menu and said can I order for her please so it comes out ASAP, ordered hers and some drinks, our drinks, and and apple juice for daughter - Sorry no apple juice I have fizzy apple juice (she's a toddler -common sense suggest No.,.) No worries pineapple juice then. 15 mins later our drinks come, with maybe 10 other people in the pub who already had drinks seemed a bit slow, to which I said could you please check how long the kids meal will be please - oh sorry yes we don't have the Children chicken goujons.............!! This was 20 mins later! So this now 1:50 and no food orders and just got drinks, fine picked something else off kids menu then we ordered bread to start and our mains. Bread came out - butter was practically frozen so couldn't actually spread it and bread was just stale tasting like had been cut In the morning and just left. Daughters food came 15 mins later , to which point the waitress comes over and says have you finished with your bread shall I send your main orders through now????? ITS BREAD after 45 min wait surely you would have put the mains through together with the bread order we are humans not sparrows! To which point I also spotted a specials board, that no one actually even mentioned- again......Why? Not that I imagine it would have made any difference! Anyway the long and short! Was there over 2.5:hours (2.15 hours longe than I would have liked that's for sure) with really rubbish service,worse food, and just general lack of any awareness/ care.Needless to say the only reason we went there is because I couldn't get a booking at the old plough in Cobham that never disappoints and this gave the impression it may have been of the same standards! HOW VERY WRONG!!!! Avoid like COVID!

Anything positive to say????? Ermmm it's...

A bit of a shame. Would have always rated a 5* for the past 6-7 years but returned after not having visited for a little while has lost its magic a bit.

Sat in the front where it's order & pay at the bar and just casual dining. Ordered a 'tapas'-like meal of bar bites and starters. Starting with the good, the mushroom rarebit, ham & cheese croquettes and whitebait were lovely. Really enjoyable and flavoursome. But a few dishes let them down including the chilli chicken wings and calamari & courgette fritters. At first, put it down to just an unlucky wing, tried another to give the benefit of the doubt, then the other of the two of us tried one to see if it was just individual opinion. In fairness...that's 3 of the 4 small wings on the plate, but we just left the fourth as they weren't enjoyable and we had plenty of good dishes.

Not wildly unpleasant enough to complain outright. When collecting our plates, the waiter asked how everything was and saw we'd not finished the chicken wings, so we just said they were a bit dry and bland but that we loved the rarebit and croquettes. Waiter was really friendly and he cracked a joke, asked if we wanted to raise it as a proper complaint which we said we didn't feel strongly. No big deal made of it and had already paid so not angling at getting the dish comped off the bill. Thought nothing more of it.

As we were leaving maybe half an hour later, the Chef was at the bar with one of the bar staff making snide comments under his breath, and THAT'S what's actually bothered us enough to review. We'd been fine just leaving it, or would actually have preferred the chef come up to the table and challenging us/asking for more detail if he felt particularly strongly about it. But for a grown man to snarkily mutter "oh is that them?" and "can't have been that bad if you ate 3 wings" in a catty way just left a bad taste (ironic).

An interesting choice of career if you're precious about mild critique on some chicken wings and ignore complements on other dishes, in an industry designed around asking customers for feedback...unprofessional, petty and churlish.

All other staff pleasant and helpful though so a shame it just rubbed us up the wrong way. Would genuinely have been easier to just whinge about us behind closed doors at...

Started well. Sat down and was asked about drinks. No wine menu though and had to ask. Very miserable woman. No pleasant greeting. Even though she should have been aware that it was to celebrate my mother in laws 90th birthday!! We asked for food menus and then waited and waited before she took our choices. Then waited quite a while for our first course We also ordered a child’s menu which were we asked if she would like it as everyone else was having starters. NO she had to wait for one and a half hours!!! Then we waited and waited and waited for well over an hour for our main meal. Did anyone come in to us and apologise obviously not. No child’s meal even. The miserable waitress didn’t say anything to us. Finally my brother had to go and ask what was going on and told it would be 2 mins well it wasn’t He had to leave by 3.30 as he was driving back to Bath and had to collect his dog by a certain time. His son was still desperately trying to eat his meal as fast as possible and they had to rush off. We were not offered anymore wine no dessert. Nothing. Absolutely awful service. It totally spoiled the atmosphere for her birthday. I was told when booking that we had to be out at 3.30. Nobody came and said don’t worry about getting out stay and have a dessert etc. would have been a lovely gesture for a member of staff to have wished her happy birthday and maybe offered a dessert so we could have finished our meal with a happy birthday celebration. I was planning on booking my mothers 90th with you and also my fathers but I will definitely not. A very spoilt...