Bare Grills - Taunton — Restaurant in England

It's quite good. The owner has done a good job decorating, but the chip board floors and toilet, does give a cheap finish. Several booths along 1 wall, benches and tables running along the other, with a few tables for 2 running up the middle. In front of the bar, the guys had plugged in a electric heater, facing the restaurant area. This explains the orange hew in the photos. We were also denied a deep fried cheese dish, which was offered as both a starter and a main, because the fryer had recently caught fire and was out of action.

I fancied an American/bbq meal for a while, so was hugely looking forward to this. As you will find when you see my plate. Full rack of baby back bbq ribs served with seasoned fries, house slaw and a bread roll. Additional sides of 4 spicy wings and corn on the cob. The ribs were good. A lot of effort has gone into the slow cooking of these. They were dry ish ribs, no overload of bbq sauce, this made them a lot easier and more enjoyable to eat. I have eaten ribs that were a lot more tender, but there was a wonderful smokiness and depth of flavour. Again, the wings had a lovely smokey flavour, but were cooked, or at least finished on the grill for a little too long. They were over cooked, and over blackened in places. Spoilt. My advise, fix the fryer and get these in there. The wings had a drizzle of a hot sauce. This did not combat the dry, over cooked chicken, nor was it spicy. I consider the spice of KFC hot wings as a standard. These fell way under that. The sauce was more like a underwhelming smokey bbq with a few dashes of Tabasco. Again, advise to the owners, ditch this hot sauce and toss them in a habanero alternative.

The grilled chicken, as you can see from the photo was butterflied wafer thin. It looked good, but would look better and more impressive if the breast was not butterflied. The chargrilling was good. Emparted a nice flavour, but this was supposed to be glazed with a bbq sauce, this was not evident.

The fries were great. I don't know the mix of herbs used to season them, but they were very nice. The slaw lacked seasoning and any real depth of flavour. Slaw was very forgettable. Sweetcorn was very soft. The bread roll looked like the part baked kind you get from supermarkets, then chucked on the grill for some black lines.

The soft drinks on offer are all from cans or bottles. They do have a great selection including Dr Pepper, Cherry Coke and several flavours of Fanta. Cans are £1.60, which is a bit hard to swallow. However, the mark up on syrup machines is much higher, so not sure if this is a pro or con.

The restaurant list online and on the menus, homemade cheese cake. We were very excited for this. I was quite disappointed to find that the cheese cake wasn't baked. Today's flavour was Kinder, and was very nice. It just wasn't baked, so no real skill or understanding was needed to make it.

I rated this place as a 3 star. After reading through my review, I have down graded to 2. I would expect a little more for my money. I didn't like the chipboard floor or toilets. The cooking wasn't the best and the fryer mishap suggests a great lack of experience. Our waiter took never checked back, took too long to get the bill and keep say "that's perfectly fine" when taking orders. (When you think about it, a very poor choice of words). He had only been on the job a month, so this downfall lays with the person/people who trained him. And the cheese cake was not baked.

We are not local, but will return to the area. I would eat here again, as I believe everyone and every restaurant deserves a second chance. But will be a 2 star review for now, and will not be...

Reserved a table way ahead of time and all was okay. We sat down and ordered drink and got ID’d, two of us had them to hand, 2 didn’t. We had photos of the ID so the server kept checking with her manager going back and forward with different things but this wasn’t accepted which was fine after a few tries, as the 2 are 25/28. We ordered the drinks still just ordered non-alcoholic. The couple we were with are getting married this weekend and have just had a baby, so this was one thing we said to prove we were over 18. The server then bought our drinks over and said her manager said to say ‘congratulations’. We found this a very sarcastic comment as the manager was the one denying us a drink due to us not being ‘old enough’. We found the comment extremely sarcastic and unprofessional given the situation, and given the manager wouldn’t come over and see us and kept sending the 18 year old server back and forward, rather than coming to speak to us herself, who was clearly uncomfortable in the situation, although not her fault. We immediately left given how rude the manager was to us and we will never be returning after that. We were although disappointed, not overly bothered about the drink as we were just there for the food. Server was lovely and couldn’t fault her, the manager on the other hand clearly needs some training on customer service. We moved down the road to Hubbox who had amazing service and even better food. Would highly...

I dunno. I went recently, and it felt like they’d really slipped on standards. The service was great, we were well looked after by our server and had no complaints there. The food though... it used to be really good, but on this occasion the wings were dry and burnt, the chips were rock hard, and the bbq brisket and ribs.... well. I know the menu says it’s all cooked fresh and made daily, but I guarantee you that isn’t true. The brisket had definitely not just come out of the smoker. (Do you even have a smoker?) It was dry, and had been on the chargrill, creating a burnt crust that is not nice at all. A smoked brisket does not need any time on the chargrill. Smoke it ready for service and keep it warm.

The ribs were also dried out to the point that they had about as much juice as a raisin. You can’t tell me they were expertly smoked during the day and served that evening. They were old.

I don’t like to write a harsh review, but hopefully you’ll see this and try a bit harder next time.

What with Grillstock in Bristol closing down, there aren’t many options around for good authentic USA bbq around here. You’ve got Pig and Pallet in Topsham, but that’s about it as far as I know. I’m afraid Bare Grills has just come off that ever shrinking list for me. Perhaps going midweek was a bad idea, maybe the chef is off until the weekend. Who knows. I’ll come back, but fingers crossed you’ve had a word with...