Red Admiral — Restaurant in England

When we arrived and were shown to our table we realised that we had not been given the highchairs we requested so had to find some ourselves. Took 30 minutes just to get drinks at the bar. As we had a large party we put in a pre-order but they told us after 45 minutes that one of the children's meals was unavailable. We then waited another 45 minutes to receive our starters. One of them was missing and they tried to tell us we didn't order it. Luckily we kept a copy of the order. We then asked to see the rest of the order they had put in and discovered that other meals were also missing. We also queried as meals were not marked as gluten free and they assured us they had been put through as gluten free. 20 minutes after this the missing starter arrived. We asked the server at this point to check where the mains were as we had 7 children with us (2 under 2) who at this point had eaten nothing. They came back and said it would be a 10 minute wait. 25 minutes later the mains finally started to come out. We had only ordered a gluten free sausage and mash but when it came out it wasn't gluten free. We complained and they said they would change it immediately. After 15 minutes of them gradually serving mains to the table, we realised that another of the children's meals was missing. We queried this again and they said they would sort it. We waited a further 20 minutes for the child's main and the gluten free sausage and mash (which was also for child). The server then came back and started grabbing plates off the table before half of us had finished eating. The desserts were then rushed out to us whilst staff were clearing and stacking tables around us, clearly wanting us to hurry up with our food. When we want to pay, the manager told us she would remove the sausage and mash and the children's meal from the bill as we had waited so long but they hadn't been removed so we had to ask again for them to be taken off. We also complained about the wait, and missing food and got an excuse about them having lots of big tables booked in. They said they would give us 30% off of our main meals as compensation but this was an offer which was running today anyway so we actually received no...

The lady behind the bar was lovely and attentive. She asked all the right questions about food intolerance and allergies and had a good knowledge of their drinks for sale. Up to that point it would have been 5* but unfortunately the kitchen let the team down. My boyfriend ordered the mixed grill with a medium steak and I ordered the rump steak cooked blue. Mine came out as medium well done and my boyfriend’s was close to cremated. The rest of the mixed grill was dry and the egg had clearly been standing on the hot pass for too long as it had congealed. My steak was chewy. We had travelled from Cornwall to meet up with my family as we’ve not been together for many months and have always used the red admiral for its “family friendly” atmosphere. On this occasion it was a bit of a disappointment given the price of our meals compared to what we were given. My sister is gluten free and she chose the hunters chicken. It was served up to her and looked more like a child’s portion and was very dry. I would like to add, that although our meals were very disappointing we did however eat them as we don’t like wasting food, and we were all hungry. I didn’t complain at the time as the lovely lady behind the bar seemed to be on her own at a particularly busy of the day and that I felt that she didn’t need to be having to face another customer complaining about food. We will be coming back to the red admiral at some point next year but we feel that it will be just for drinks rather than a family get together which is what we have done for the last 11 years. We sat outside on table 102 and would love to pass on our thanks to the lady behind the bar for her lovely service and cheery disposition. She was so patient and kind with us all. If you can possibly trace her through the POS as our server within the hours of the date we visited it would be incredibly...

I prebooked meals from the festive menu for 37 adults, some of whom have a learning difficulty with their carers. I prebooked the meal in November and paid £5 deposit each. the meal was booked for 12.30. However there were only 2 staff working at the bar to provide 100 prebooked meals plus walk ins. [an extra person did help out for a short while and caused a problem by not deducting the deposit from the cost of the meal] The starters did not arrive till about 1.30. Some of the carers were under time pressure and so I made a request that 4 turkey dinners were brought out immediately after the starters as they were not having starters. however they had to wait another 10 minutes. The service was extremely slow between courses. the 2 workers were working very hard and kept cheerful but there was just too much for them to do. I do not understand why the meals were not ready to go at 12.30 as they had been prebooked. in December I asked if I could add another 2 and was told that was ok. I preordered and paid the deposits but these orders were not recorded on the day so one person did not get the salmon they had ordered. All in all it was a very disappointing experience. Having explained all this I gave 2 stars as the food when it eventually came was very good. I have been coming to the Red Admiral with this group , usually about 20 people, for many years but I will not be coming again as I had a similar experience with the service in November. You need to...