Ring O' Bells — Restaurant in England

Overrated and Disappointing

Came here for my daughters birthday; had only visited for drinks previously but had heard good things about the food, so we thought we would give it a try. We also had two gourmet cards which was a bonus and something to make it a bit better value. Sadly our experience was very disappointing and we will not be eating there again. Whilst the fish and chips was good quality, and the pizzas we had were nice, the burger was very disappointing - was of burger van processed quality in my view (see picture) and not the quality I would expect from a gastropub and something with a £12 price tag; thankfully the waitress offered to change it for something else so I opted for a pizza, although everyone else had finished eating when my replacement meal arrived. Was also disappointed with the way the pub processes the gourmet card transactions - customers beware if there are more than two people eating and you have more than one card; you would be better to order separately to get avoid being overcharged. We were charged for the two most expensive meals, and received the much cheaper two £9 pizzas free, as they were the 'cheapest' two meals - taking the offer a bit too literally in my opinion, a bit underhand and not really in the spirit of the offer. The staff and managers attitude was more disappointing though, being effectively told that's just the way it is and nobody has ever questioned it before. Left the pub with a bitter taste so this is not somewhere we will be...

We used to live much closer than we do now so popping in for food and drink was at least every few weeks. Now we're about 30 minutes away and hadn't been for probably a year. We were so disappointed with our visit. The food was poor. Each dish was underwhelming. But what made things worse was that the prices had increased sharply too. Appetisers (olives) were so acidic that we left almost half of them. It was almost £8 for a small, basic starter (calamari) which were sliced into such thin pieces that I'd be surprised if our plate contained as many as two pieces of the size the you'd normally expect. My main - a chicken burger - was dry and tough and my fiancé's Buddah Bowl was overpopulated by rice and the Halloumi that we added (for an extra £4) was dry and overdone. We were quite well looked after by the staff which meant that we weren't too put out by the issues, though when our bill arrived we very quickly felt that the cost and value of our were not equal. Two wines, a larger shandy and bottle of beer on top of those olives, a shared starter and two mains really didn't seem to justify the almost £65 bill.

Perhaps the 2 for 1 burger and pizza days (Mondays and Wednesdays) make all the difference to leveling out the pricing. But a for a full priced Saturday sitting, we were really underwhelmed.

It's such a nice setting, with some really nice touches that this visit left us with some bad tastes in our mouths literally and...

Disappointed by Lack of Inclusivity for Dietary Needs

We've enjoyed visiting Ring of Bells in the past for their great service, good food, and excellent midweek offers. This week, we called ahead about their 2-for-1 pizza deal, hoping they could accommodate my husband's recent Coeliac diagnosis. While we understand that not all restaurants can provide gluten-free pizzas, we were disappointed they couldn't include any gluten-free dishes in the deal.

It feels frustrating that people with dietary restrictions are made to pay full price and the offers are exclusive to those without such conditions. We also noticed there's no gluten-free menu available online, and the available options aren't clearly listed. Despite a smaller disclaimer about potential separation issues in the kitchen, we felt overlooked when we reached out to a staff member to see what could be done, as advised!

We don't usually post reviews of this tone, as we're typically the first to rave about a restaurant. However, it's disheartening that we felt excluded. We simply hope that Ring of Bells can become more inclusive in the future, allowing everyone (no matter the dietary) to enjoy their...