The Oliver and Hare — Restaurant in England

We had a party of 8 people booked for the Xmas menu. We had to pay a £5 deposit per person and give our orders two weeks in advance. This was completely fine.

So we arrived, at our booking time of 7pm. Then we waited....for a full 50 minutes. We watched as other tables came in and ordered and received their food before us. I get that we were a big table, but we had ordered TWO WEEKS in advance - surely you'd have the meals at least almost ready by the agreed time?

The food came in big portions (which was good because we were starving by then), and was okay. The roast dinner had a ball of something we think was meant to be stuffing but absolutely was not, and Yorkshire puddings that were all burnt. It was a bit disappointing, especially after the wait, but completely edible. The brisket was apparently lovely and basically fell apart (maybe they started slow cooking it when we arrived?😉)

Dessert took another half an hour, and the profiteroles were fantastic - absolutely recommend - but the Biscoff cheesecake apparently had no hint of Biscoff at all? Very weird.

The staff was friendly and helpful, and the place itself was warm and cozy. We were given Christmas crackers on the table which was a nice touch. Also be aware that there is no parking and you have use one of the big car parks down the road - this isn't their fault at all but was a surprise.

In general, it was okay and very affordable but I don't think I would go back, especially with...

THE FOOD IS REHEATED AND NOT FRESH! I ordered the hare of the dog (the full English breakfast), both the SAUSAGE, which was burnt black, and BACON, turned orange and dried out, had been reheated and were at least a COUPLE OF DAYS OLD.

I explained to the waitress when she collected the plates how to tell the food had been reheated on both these items. When we paid, the waitress had checked with the kitchen AND CONFIRMED YES THE FOOD IS NOT FRESH and they REHEAT FOOD they'd cooked days before. We were then told it wouldn't make sense for a business to cook these fresh otherwise it would take 45mins for the breakfasts (???). Come on - it' doesn't take that long to cook these items, especially not bacon. I was surprised to hear a justification on what's best for their business rather than customer focus or not misleading customers.

Maybe change the menu to say 'days-old reheated sausage and reheated dried out bacon' just to be clear. We still paid in full but they should have at the very least offered a discount or...

Been a customer for a long time but I'm unlikely to return. I feel it's gone downhill. The service is fine, friendly and quite quick. I had the chicken in bacon with chips and side salad and the chicken was quick dry and hard to chew and quite a few of the chips were hard and greasy as if they had been at the bottom of the fryer for a while. My friend had scampi and chips and had a similar problem with the chips and realised near the end of the meal that she was meant to have peas which weren't there! All that said it was hot and edible was but not as enjoyable as it should have been and definitely a lower standard than previously. Shame, used to really enjoy...