King Charles — Restaurant in England

We arrived just before 5 (our table was booked for 5). We waited for about 15 mins at the reception desk which was near the bar. None of the members of staff acknowledged us even the manager who was serving at the bar at the time. I went up to a lady that worked there and she just said we are busy someone will be with you soon (when at the time it really wasn't very busy ...the pub looked pretty dead). Didn't get a sorry. Other people arrived at the bar and they got seen before us. Eventually the manager came over, didn't get an apology still. He took us to our table (no high chair was there which I had previously requested and the table wasn't laid). He sat us down but didn't give us menus. So we didn't get any until a while after when someone else came over asking for drinks so then we requested menus and she seemed surprised we didn't have them already. We ordered someone to eat while we wait so just a portion of halloumi fries for the whole table (4 of us). They were delicious and were eaten very quickly. We had already ordered our mains when we had ordered the halloumi fries but my god the mains took about 9o mins to come out and at this point the restaurant wasn't very busy. We got our mains eventually but our 20 month old sons kids meal (burger) hadn't come out so we mentioned it to the manager and he went to check and came back and said the waitress hadn't put the order in through. This was bizarre as she looked like she had noted it all down. She hadn't re-read it to us so I'm not sure what she wrote down exactly. The manager said they would put the meal on again and wouldn't charge us for his meal. We ended up having to give our son bits of our meals and by the time his came out, we had finished ours. Our son was getting very tired as was getting late due to the long wait times so wasn't the most joyful experience. Our daughter had been promised a dessert by us earlier in the day so we went ahead with the desserts but ordered while out son was eating his burger so that it would save time but he had finished before the desserts came out. Took over 25 mins for desserts. We never got apologies for how long things took. As the evening went on it did start getting busier but when we were there at the beginning, it was very quiet but everything was still very slow. We paid and then was walking out when my partner saw the manager and went upto him and said it was a shame we had a bad experience there as the setting looked beautiful and the food was delicious (hats off to the chef) and the manager didnt apologize really and just kept saying he was 5 days into the role 🙄 he didn't seem to care. Didn't smile once while we were there either. He looked miserable as sin.

It's a great shame as the food really was lovely and so was the setting (fairy lights etc) but the staff really need improving in there. No one seems to know what they are doing. We travel 45 mins there and 45 mins back home and we definitely won't be...

Absolutely atrocious service and food Went for a birthday meal last Thursday evening. Food took over 40 minutes to arrive, despite there being only a handful of guests at the large Venue. There were only 2 young girls as servers for the entire restaurant also, they seemed quite cold and miserable to be there, despite us booking in advance for a birthday meal.

Venue had clearly been done up to a high standard and the interior was stylish, however the food was very poor quality. We ordered a mixture of pizza, pies and a steak as a table. The steak was as dry as anything and tasted like a cheap burger in taste - very cheap quality (and to charge over £25 for this is absolutely shocking!). The pies were sub par and my pizza was incredibly bland and flavourless. Was meant to be a 'spicy' chicken pizza. Had ZERO chilli flavour and the chicken was as dry as anything.

I asked if we could have a birthday dessert celebration and they rushed out (when we clearly weren't ready with our cameras) with a brownie (which was decent) but absolutely no candle to blow out, despite this being a very standard ask of a restaurant celebration.. They told me they 'had no candles available' after handing us the plate and then rushing off. Zero smiles or anything from the server. .. the sticky toffee puddings were fine quality however.

What ruined our night most of all was a screaming table of children behind us. Their children were running about the place shrieking to the top of their lungs for a solid 2 hours, parents couldnt care less that they were causing such disruption and not one staff member intervened to quiet them down. This was meant to be a high quality dining experience, however it seemed the staff couldn't care less, and we weren't the only ones being affected by this. The sound echoed throughout the large restaurant and we couldn't even hear ourselves speak. It really cheapened the atmosphere of the restaurant unfortunately. They really should have a rule of no children after 8pm, like so many other institutions.

In summary, yes the location is convenient off the main road and the interior is modern, however the food and service is sub par, bordering on awful. They don't appear to value guests experiences, whether that is ensuring the restaurant is quiet and comfortable for guests to even the small touches such as providing birthday candles on a cake when celebrating. Our bill came to over £150 and that is money we will never be getting back, especially in his living crisis. I feel robbed not only of our money, but of enjoyable family time celebrating a birthday, even of simple pleasures like being able to hear ourselves talk. We will NOT be returning and we are incredibly disappointed with the food and...

We booked this restaurant to celebrate a birthday! It was very disappointing! The restaurant was almost empty on a Saturday night (29 April) could this be indicative of other disappointed diners before us? Based on how few people were there we were very surprised at how poor the service was as they were definitely not rushed off their feet! We were 4 couples and arrived in 2 groups. The first group already had drinks but no-one noticed the second group arrive or if they did they didn’t come to see if we wanted drinks. We had to wave a waitress down and then it took a long time for the drinks to arrive. We constantly had to keep asking for things like water for the table, they didn’t notice when we ran out of wine and didn’t remove the empty bottles from the table. I think there was only one time that someone proactively come to check if we needed anything . The table we were seated at was glass topped and you could see it had been wiped because it was all smeared but it needed polishing off so that it looked and felt clean. The starters were all lovely but then it took an hour before our mains arrived. The food on the whole was tasty however the portion sizes were very small and to describe them as large plates is misleading, unless they are referring to the plate the food is served on! I had sea bass and it was only half a filet and a couple of stalks of broccoli with some crushed new potatoes. Two of our party had the pie and it was in a dish about 11cm in diameter. The filet steak didn’t even look like steak! It had clearly been kept warm as it was bone dry on the outside and hard to cut through the crust that had formed, the chips were soggy and the onion confit not there! See photo! The pizza was awful , a shop bought pizza would have been better. The chicken ok but not enough veg. We all wanted to try the rhubarb and custard pavlova but this was not available as the rhubarb hadn’t been delivered! They even gave us someone else’s bill. Needless to say based on our experience last night we wouldn’t recommend or return which is a shame as it’s a lovely venue.hopefully they will get a manager in there to lead the service . Gordon Ramsey kitchen nightmares...