Miller & Carter Aylesbury — Restaurant in England

Been here last Friday as a second attempt to try their food after been turned down 2 weeks before for not having a booking. I read quite a few reviews prior to booking a table & besides the amount of bad reviews (mainly poor customer service; parking tickets;etc) I decided to have a go as there were good consistent reviews about the food itself. So here's my brief for our table booked for Friday at 9pm:

Walk ins - I find a shame that they don't take walk ins as I am so used to London's standard but I respect their policy & to make a booking is also quite straightforward, so no real issues apart from convenience. I score it 8 out of 10.

Parking - As you walk in there is a screen right in front of you to type in your plate number. Hard to miss it & it gives you 4 hours free parking. I score it 10 out of 10.

Waiter Service - Mostly young waiters likely to be students. I found overall service quite good actually bearing in mind all the bad reviews..., nothing spectacular but I wouldn't expect much being in the countryside anyway. As we sat down, within 3 minutes we had the menus presented. After that within 5 minutes the waiter was ready to take orders. I ordered the drinks first as we were choosing the food still. Another 5 minutes passed & the waiter came to take the food order but we still had no drinks served. So I asked for the drinks prior to any food being ordered even though we knew what to order by that point. With drinks served, another couple of minutes & the food order was taken. The waiters may need more training. I score it 7 out of 10.

Food - I must say I was worried to order rare meat as quite often it comes medium well, caused by the lack of skilled cooks operating the kitchens. In this occasion I must say that the cooking was done to perfection, to my surprise. I love good surprises. :-) my husband & sister has both medium & that's what they got. Perfect! I must give it to the Chefs! Well done cooks! Food portion very generous. Very tasty food & well seasoned. The mash potato was very creamy & I know to a high standard that many casual restaurants won't do. Great attention to detail from the kitchen. Just one thing I'd like to point out was the different portions size of salad that were served on our table, so that could be looked at. I'm not fussy but I paid attention to it. Excellent food. Quality serving dishes & cutlery for steaks. Brazilian made knife & tramontina is a great brand used by the best steak serving restaurants. Good wine selection to pair with the meats offered & at a price that is reasonable. We did not have desserts. I score it 9 out of 10.

Décor & dress code - Loved the décor. Quite countryside in a "chic" format. Very comfy seats & adequate lighting. The rooms are well devided & I love the open kitchen & the toilets area. One thing I just don't quite see the point is the dress code. "Dress to impress" is definitely not required here. I at least couldn't see the restaurant delivering a all round "dress to impress" service to require that from it's guest in return. The place is great, but not to "impress", in my view. I score it 7 out of 10.

All in all, I had my expectations exceeded & most importantly than anything else, the food was great & cooked to perfection. That's what you want from a steak house. Would certainly recommend & will most definitely come back.

I have been part of the professional fine food industry for the past 10 years, from professionally cooking to sourcing & selling & now manufacturing to the UK & Europe. I hope you will find this...

We have visited this Miller and Carter a few times since it opened and I have never had a good experience. We thought we would try again as my partner wanted to try the festive menu.

Upon arrival I was warmly greeted and shown to my table and promptly asked for my drink choice. It wasn't overly busy and I thought maybe our bad experiences with the venue had ended! We viewed the 3 menus on offer and decided on a festive burger and a camembert Wellington. The waitress was surprised the Wellington wasn't an option on the tablet so went to check with the kitchen. After some time, she returned and said this wasn't available today. So I view the menus again and decided to get the mushroom starter and Wellington from the festive menu. She said the mushrooms weren't available and I honestly thought how hard is it to tell people what isn't available when they are seated? I said I'm pushed for time as only have an hour for lunch so we will leave it (it had been 40 mins at this point) and she didn't seem bothered we had been disappointed and brought the bill for the two drinks.

During this time I said to my partner I wonder if they will let me choose a starter off the main menu to have with the festive main seeing as 2 items I now wanted weren't available. The waitress asked the manager, who said you can have the festive main on its own you don't have to pick 2 courses. I think she missed the point I was making! Anyway, we settled on one starter and two mains. We waited and waited and finally an hour and 15 minutes after arriving I had something to eat.

Food was amazing - Wellington and burger were very tasty.

When the bill came, the waitress handed us the card machine with the option of adding a tip. After the experience we had and the fact it had taken so long I didn't add a tip. Well, the attitude from the waitress was awful. I'll be honest, her response is the only reason I'm giving a review! Her smile dropped, took the card machine and stormed off. No thank you for coming, sorry again... no hope your lunch was lovely... nothing. It left us feeling so uncomfortable and quite sad if I am honest. We rarely get child free time to go out for food together and for us miller and Carter is a treat.

I guess the reason for the feedback is - please let people know what isn't available when they are seated and don't be rude if they don't want to leave a tip and make they feel incredibly...

What a lovely interior this place has. Me and my partner went today as we was in aylesbury shopping. On first entry we were welcomed by a gentleman and seated very quietly and he took our drinks orders. Our drinks were brought to us by our waitress Ella who was full of smiles and very polite and professional. We asked for water for the table but this was not brought to us so we asked again and still the water never arrived. We did not ask again. Beautiful deco in this building and loads of caricature. Ella then took out food orders and answered any questions we had.

The starters. arrived quickly and were well presented and tasty, we both were very happy with our choice.

Main course. Once our food was prepared it sat on the hot shelf for about 5 minutes before it was given to us. Food again very well presented and tasty. Only downside to the meal was my chips were cold from sitting on the side, my partners broccoli was not edible as it was very twiggy and burnt. Ella did offer an alternative for the broccoli but we was happy to just not eat it.

Apart from that the food was good and a great price.

This experience could have been very good but me and my partner both felt that the place could do with a good clean as it had only been open for 1.5hrs and there was food on the seats, floors from the previous day and this was not just where we had been seated as I had a walk around. The shelves on the backrests are dusty and need a clean. Seats had drink spill marks down them.

I would completely understand if this was halfway through there day and it had been busy but that was not the case and I believe it just had not been hovered and cleaned from the day before.

Would I return again Yes I would but would like to see it clean. Again thank you Ella for your...