Starling — Restaurant in England

Unfortunately we had our second bad visit here today which culminated in us not paying and 1/3 of us never getting any food. It’s such a shame as the food is good as is the beer and coffee but the service and system for the second Sunday we’ve been for brunch now is so broken. Nobody seems to know what they are doing. Food again took a long time to arrive and mine didn’t arrive at all which spoiled the family brunch. I was told they forgot my order and it would be 15 more minutes. Staff kept bringing other peoples food out ahead of mine to others tables who sat down after us whilst I watched my table eat which is unforgivable. I then was offered a free coffee which took 10 minutes. I then cancelled my food after everyone finished (30 minutes later) and a full 1 hour 20 wait for 3 brunches. The icing on the cake was when we got up to leave the same girl who I politely complained to and asked to cancel my order brought my food over forgetting I cancelled it. I was very reasonable with the staff but this really did ruin our morning. Lucky to get two stars as I’ve had good experiences in this place before but something is really wrong with the communication and service now. Perhaps different staff post covid as we had a similar poor experience here a few weeks ago which again wasn’t a busy restaurant but poor service and an incorrect...

I had genuine high hopes, as I'd heard great things, but I was left disappointed. I ordered a full English (I can't remember what it's listed as on the menu), and my mother ordered mushrooms on toast. My mother said she enjoyed her food, but mine wasn't as good, I'm afraid. The bacon was rock hard, like it had been re-cooked several times, the beans were hard, cold and had a funny taste, like they were mixed with blended tinned tomatoes and the black pudding was hard and overcooked. The sausages were nice, though, and so was the mushroom. I had also asked the gent on the bar for no tomato, but when the waitress brought it out, it had tomato on it. When I mentioned it to her, she took the plate back away, and it was brought back out a couple of minutes later, minus the tomato. I also had to ask for my knife to be replaced, as it had food stuck to the end of it, from previous use. Overall, it was just a very disappointing experience. The young lady that was working did check on us, but I'd not eaten much of the food yet, so I couldn't really give an honest review. Also my mother wanted to treat me, so I didn't want to upset her by complaining, but you need the feedback to improve in future. It's a lovely little venue, but just a few smaller attentive details need to be ironed out...

This is a great little pub except for an experience at Sunday's Quiz Night, where we were sat at the only available table with was directly beneath a speaker. After many mic issues, one of which feedbacking into a screech that genuinely hurt my ears, it got on the roll. But the music was simply too loud. I asked a bartender if we could get it turned down just a tad, but he said they're all the same volume. Regardless of who is sitting underneath that speaker can't be having a good time with music being played so loud it was difficult to have a conversation, even more so when trying to participate in the pub quiz. Also, the music was just really bad and not at all fitting the vibe either. After "shazamming" a few of the songs, I saw that they were obscure grungey alt rock songs, most of which had been Shazammed 0-5 times, which goes to show who has ever heard these songs and said "I just HAVE to know what this amazing song is!". Next time, maybe settle for some approachable music rather than "Legal Snare In A Therapist's Chair", and rethink either the volume of your speakers or don't put a wealth of seating...