The Crown — Restaurant in England

Party of 6 plus toddler for Sunday lunch. We were greeted at the door warmly but told we would be squeezed onto our table which isn't really the most welcoming way of introducing the restaurant. Menu was mainly roasts and a few extras, selection was pretty good and what youd want from a nice weekend pub visit. Fish and chips, burgers, pie etc. Prices all over £20 for roasts which is not uncommon for these parts but for that price I was looking forward to something exceptional. The non roast items were frankly astonishingly expensive, £18.50 for a burger and £19 for fish and chips is madness despite how often I see these prices. Staff were very friendly and orders were taken, food took about as long as you would expect for a busy Sunday. I had the pork belly roast, first thing I noticed was the flaccid wilted watercress garnish, both unnecessary and un-appetising. The foundation of a good roast is the potatos. The should be fluffy on the inside, with a good crunchy exterior, neither of which these sad spuds could even dream of. There was no evidence of the accepted gold standard these days of par boiling then roasting in plenty of fat. They were hard, pale, and dry, I've had better for half the price. If a kitchen can't roast a good potato I question whether the chefs know what they're doing or they just don't care. The pork belly was another disappointment. This is a cut that is either pure indulgence or just bad. A good belly should melt in your mouth, you should almost be able to cut it with a spoon, and should be under a crackled skin that shatters on impact. I was served a tough rectangle of pork, fat left flabby and unrendered, and just plain disappointing. This again shows a lack of care as to what was leaving the kitchen as pork belly is incredibly forgiving, all it needs is heat, salt, and time, a long time, and it will reward you with succulence which was sorely missed. The apple sauce that was supposed to come with the pork didn't until I asked for it late into the meal when someone finally checked on us. Mushy peas were also missing from the fish and chips. Additional points of criticism are that children's food was brought out last rather than first which would have been a nice touch, the beautiful bathroom was marred by a tap hanging off its fitting, table being cleared while people were still eating, an electronic tablet was presented to us to give feedback rather than the staff actually talking to us, a long, really long wait before we could get anyone's attention after the mains to request dessert menus, another long wait for the bill, cauliflower cheese was dry and undercooked, arctic roll was hard, child's pizza that looked like they were running out of cheese, grey beef with no hint of pink, I think that's everything. For a pub that has clearly had a huge investment and looks fantastic inside and out, the food and service did not live up to this cozy but classy finish. More attention should be paid to the quality of food than the designer bathroom wallpaper, pure style over substance. I could forgive many of these faults in a pub that charged reasonable rates but this really should have been exceptional, instead it was weatherspoon quality with...

At very short notice I thought it would be nice to go out with the family to enjoy one of the nicest days this year and end up out for a meal. We chose The Crown and booked online easily which is always great. Parking was good too, with lots of space and although I didn't use it, there did appear to be an overflow car park as well. A lot of the public were outside, but we decided to eat in as we'd been out all-day and wanted a more relaxed meal. The staff member at the bar was friendly, checked us in and showed us to some seats. My son and I sat on the large long bench seats, wide and daughter on the chairs. The long bench has seen better days and was very low down making it an odd height for the table so ideally it needs taller people than me (at 5'10) to eat comfortably. Service for the order and drinks were fine at the beginning and an order was taken by the staff by memory, it wasn't written down anywhere so I panicked a little. Drinks arrived as well as water, 2 of the 4 glasses were dirty and still had lipstick on so we put those to the side. Where we sat it didn't seem busy and it was quiet but it took over 45 minutes for the starters to come out. Mid temperature, my chicken was half hot, half room temperature. The kids garlic bread was cold. Scoffed quicker than you can sneeze we waited for the mains, about another 20 minutes after starters were done. No service between this time for drinks or check ups, just cleaning the table of plates. Mains arrived and my mixed grill was dire. The meats were cold and over cooked, drier than a beach flipflop, the only edible meat was the gammon which I enjoyed as too the kids. The chips were soggy as they had cooled down somewhat by the time we had got them and my son didn't enjoy the macaroni cheese as much as he had at other Chef n Brewers'. My daughter plowed through her food like she hadn't eaten in a week but had been constantly complaining of being hungry since we arrived but now looking at well over an hour for the main to arrive. My wife won the food lottery and her Sea Bass was good. I ate what I could, but could feel my insides mixing up the meat into something akin of postcrete, so feeling quite uncomfortable I was chugging water down to keep things moving. Being British we then waited. And waited. And after 30 minutes I went to the bar to settle my tab, no question asked about the meal, so again, being British I couldn't complain if I hadn't been asked about it. So I said nothing. I rounded up the feral children, now hyper on the idea of going home to sit in front of the vegetation box (TV) and went home feeling, well, quite disappointed.

It's a nice pub, the day was glorious, all they needed to do was serve palatable and hot food. I might be wrong and you can judge me from your screen if you want, but on the way home I felt awful, thought I should have stopped eating that dried up meat and complained rather than give myself this awful indigestion, but I was hungry and really wanted the day to end on a positive note for the family and felt me moaning about it wouldn't do any good. Plus, very contrary to this post, I don't like moaning. At least not in public......

Absolutely awful for breakfast, do not come here!!

This is the second time we have attended for breakfast. The first time in September we were told they had a limited menu as they had just started doing breakfast again, disappointing but we understood.

However we returned in November. We had booked for 15 for breakfast, so they were aware there would be a big party, but they were completely unprepared, despite the venue being quiet. Again they had 5 dishes they stated they could not do. We were only told about this as we were ordering which was disappointing. It wasn't made clear to us why the dishes weren't available and we suggested an alternative. The waiter was incredibly rude at this point and all but had a go at us, treating us as though we were stupid and an inconvenience. There was no apology for this behaviour.

Portions were tiny across the board, completely not worth the money. Eggs and toast you got two eggs and the smallest piece of toast ever! looked like a child's portion. 4 of us ordered poached eggs, when they came, they were hard-boiled (these plates were taken off the bill) everything that came was also cold.

It was meant be to a nice family reunion, however it was completely ruined by the bad food and awful service. It was completely unacceptable. Will be actively telling people to avoid here. I dont like leaving bad reviews but this visit really...