Beefeater Granary — Restaurant in England

We have eaten here previously and had a good meal, but we won't be going back after today. We booked lunch and was met with a mob of people blocking the front door, which put us off from the start. When we managed to get inside we waited about 5 minutes before a chap appeared, who then completely ignored us, taking another couple to their table, not even a 'be with you in a moment or hello or actually any eye contact'. A waitress then appeared, she was pleasant and showed us to a table, we ordered drinks and food. When my fillet arrived it was supposed to be medium, but was still bloody and even with a steak knife it was like trying to cut through my shoe. The waitress took it back to the kitchen to be cooked more, but on its return it was still quite rare in the middle and very gristly for a fillet. To be fair I know that sometimes you get the nasty end of a fillet, but I've had better fillet steaks from Aldi and expect more from a steak being charged £24. My partner is a qualified city and guilds chef, and decided to check his ribeye which was also rare when it should have been medium. The waitress had obviously assumed there would be an issue with our food as the same chap that ignored us to begin with arrived at the table asking what the problem was. I dont like to make a fuss, but my steak was so bad I would not have been able to eat it so I am glad my partner interjected. He showed the chap his steak and asked him if the steaks were cooked in a clamshell or on a griddle to which the response was griddled and temperature probed. My partner showed him how rare his steak was he asked him if he agreed the steak was rare. The chap replied again it was temperature probed, but if he had ordered a steak himself, he would have eaten his steak like the one on my partners plate. (Did not answer the question at all) He did offer to replace both steaks, but the overall attitude of this chap was 'couldn't give a monkeys' and they would probably have kicked it around the floor before serving it to us anyway. I've never walked out of a restaraunt before, but honestly it was the worst restaraunt experience I've ever had. Im 52 and eaten in lots of them and never had such bad food or service.

My partner has dealt with the food and manufacturing side of hospitality for most of his career including consult work for some very big restaraunt chains, food manufacturers and even the NHS. He isn't one to band around his chef qualifications or expertise in hospitality ( on this occasion I am doing that to punctuate just how bad our experience was ) so we left, choosing not to make a scene. This restaraunt chain would improve a lot from his expertise and training before they lose the last of their customers, and the ones that are enticed by the 2 for 1 vouchers the mail shot out are no longer duped in.

£24 for a fillet i couldn't even cut with a steak knife? Never again. If I could rate the service and food with negative stars I would. We felt like we were on a conveyor belt of just get them in and get them out, especially overhearing a conversation between the chap and our waitress where he apologised to her for a table of seven that wanted to sit in the middle of the restaraunt. There is no happy faces on the staff, they lack customer skills, management skills and definitely need to hire chefs who know how to cook steak.

No wonder hospitality as an industry is dying when it's being killed off like this. We ended up driving to Nandos, where we were greeted like valued customers by a lovely young lady who checked our food was good, and if we needed anything at all, to just ask. (Nandos staff do not work on tips) We booked dinner at 12pm and finally got home about 3.30pm, When really we should have been home about 1 to 1.30pm. A more than disappointing experience, and a waste of our time.

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I haven't been to a Beefeater in years. Very busy when we arrived but took a while for someone to great us at 20:30 at night. Service was pleasant, lots of large groups of heavy drinking guests and some kids running around, a throwback lodge style on quite a great scale, a bit dated but interesting. Simple slightly dated decor. It is located between a pitch and put golf course and a Premier Inn.

The food though... Not great.

Starters

Prawn cocktail with toasted chiabata, was ordered. We recieved: 12 prawns on a bed of chunks of cucumber with a sliver of shredded lettuce, served with one medium slice of white loaf (toast bread?), stale, with two unspreadable packs of butter. Toped with a tablespoon of marie-rose sauce and a dusting of paprika? Double crispy chicken wing starter with bbq sauce. We recieved: 4 overcooked crispy chicken wings, lost in a bowl, no garnish (peppers, salad were in the photo) just 4 small overcooked wings in a large bowl with a basic barbecue sauce. Nearly inedible.

Main courses

8 oz Rump, medium rare, with skinny fries, peppercorn sauce. Images show garnish.

We recieved a beautiful rare to blue 8oz steak which my daughter loved. However, presentation was poor without garnish shown in the menu. Needed a smaller plate or more food.

10 oz marbled steak (ribeye), medium rare, with triple cooked fries and peppercorn sauce.

We recieved a very grissly, inedible medium to well done, burnt tasting stake with skinny fries, smaller inconsistent portion to my daughters, no garnish, lost on a plate that looked half empty. I stopped eating after having to remove the three mouthfuls. Very poor presentation and quality for around £25.

I was convinced to try again by the nice waitress. I instead ordered a medium rare rump instead.

Chips were single cooked wedges, not triple cooked. The meat was lovely but cooked as medium to well done. I ate it because I was hungry and felt bad for the waitress.

I can see why Whitbread will be offloading these soon. It would cost too much to refurbish. When you don't bother to comply with your own menus presentation, and failed to cook three steaks correctly. It cannot survive. So many restaurants do this perfectly. The joke is they have pictures on the wall of how a chef checks the texture of a cooked steak to identify if it is rare, medium, well done, etc.

Feels like a restaurant out of time and unable to deliver it's own menu.

Breakfast

Breakfast the next morning however was perfect. Everything you expect from a cooked breakfast linked with...

Have not been here for a while. At worst it has always been fine.

Ordered food from the bar. The gammon steak when it arrived could at best be described as lukewarm - clearly left standing too long. Took it back to be bar and the lady was very apologetic took it away to get it replaced and offered without prompting to give us a free drink or dessert. A nice gesture and much appreciated. Unfortunately when the piping hot meal was delivered it turned out that the gammon was well a truly char grilled (and not pleasantly so). I couldn't be bothered going for a third round as my partner by this time had finished their meal - so I ate it. Left the most offensively burnt bit of gammon so they could see how bad it was. Mentioned to the lady behind the bar who again was very apologetic and went to get the manager. He came over apologised said he'd speak to the chef and then walked away. They effed up my meal twice and that was the sum total of his response - the lady behind the bar at least offered us a drink or dessert on the first instance.

Now I don't know if the chef is crap, having a bad day, or got miffed that someone sent food back but the second gammon was simply unacceptable. The shame of it is the first one seemed to be cooked fine it was just the whole plate was just about lukewarm (well the gammon and chips, the peas were just plain cold).

Given the underwhelming response of the manager we didn't bother with the dessert or drink and left.

Under normal circumstances I wouldn't mention this but as we found it sort of damningly amusing: my partner had the flatbread chicken sandwich. It was fine but as she was cutting it up to eat it came apart. She noticed that all the lettuce was all just stalk: four precisely, clean, cut stalks removing all the leafy part. Someone had gone to the trouble of cutting lettuce up and serving only the stalk!

The main dining area seemed to be closed (I assume for a deep clean) as when we went to the bar area we were advised that most of the chairs were wet as they had just had a much needed deep clean. I get it, this has to be done, but why would you close off one area and then render the only other remaining area near unusable!

The lady behind the bar was brilliant from start to finish. Shame the rest of it was...