The Freke Arms Grill On The Hill — Restaurant in England

We were greeted at the bar of this restaurant &, as we hadn't booked, given the choice of a table in the dog friendly section (there were no dogs booked in), or the snug (3 tables just down some steps), we chose the snug....but it wasn't. It was chilly.

The young lady offered to bring us some drinks, in hindsight we should have just ordered & taken the pints with us. The drinks took a fair while to be delivered. She then went to get the tablet so we could order food (we'd had plenty of time to choose waiting for the drinks). Dad had decided on the Ham, Egg & Chips only to be told "sorry, we don't do the ham on Tuesdays. We have our meat delivered in the morning so the ham is being cooked now." I can only presume there is no ham on Monday either. I ordered the Sausage & Mash (not as simple a dish as it sounds), Dad ended up going for the Hand battered Cod & Chips.

The food was delivered more promptly than the drinks had been, but tbh was....okay. Mine was swimming in gravy which made the sausages look like they'd washed up on a beach. The multi veg mash (potato, swede, carrot, celeriac, sweet potato & leek) was too runny for my taste. Dad's fish was adequate, but the plate just had too much on it, & why was the salad on a little saucer on the plate?

Nothing terribly wrong with much, but we won't be going back, sorry. As I said at the start, it is clearly popular & busy, just not...

With decent reviews online we expected a good experience.. we visited for my brother in laws birthday (with kids). We were shoved into a corner area and within 10 minutes were asked to keep our children quiet for the benefit of other patrons (there was one other table in the whole restaurant who didn’t mind our well behaved kids at all!)… we were also presented with paper menus which didn’t included the full menu displayed online. The food wasn’t great at all and while the waitress was lovely, the manager or owner was horrid. After complaining about our kids, he kept glaring over at us making us feel uncomfortable. My brother in law also received a call at 10pm the night before from him to ‘confirm the booking.’ After being asked if he was the owner and why he had called so late he rudely replied “well I work until 11pm so what’s the problem! Were you sleeping?!” - no apology and no effort to retain customers. They couldn’t wait for us to leave - no offer of coffees or dessert. They literally locked up and left as we got in the car (and we had only been there for just over an hour). I would not recommend this place to anyone wanting a decent meal and a...

We were a big party of 8 adults and 5 children and everyone was very pleased. Starters were excellent and arrived promptly (with the children's mains); the mains were very quick to arrive after the starters were collected (with every meal coming at the same time as you expect) and well cooked and presented. Portions are generous, so if you're hungry you will not be disappointed.

There is a wide selection of food, catering for all.

I had fillet steak, medium rare, and it was cooked brilliantly (not pub standard, good restaurant standard I would say), very soft and tender. Everybody else in the party was very pleased with their food (we had Ham egg chips, lamb shank, pork medallions, thai green curry, lasagne, grilled chicken, and a surf n turf). Vegetarian options were available, with many salads on offer also.

Would very much recommend to anyone, and if we are in the area ever again I would make sure we ate there again (even going a good few miles out...