The Orange Tree Restaurant — Restaurant in England

I don't believe it is right for a restaurant owner to lie in response to an honest review, so I am here to provide receipts.

(Update: There should be 3 photos attached to this review, unfortunately 2 don't seem to show for anyone but me -reported perhaps?- they show an email exchange between myself and the restaurant as described below. The 3rd shows a screenshot of the original restaurant response. I have tried reattaching the images to no avail which is why the review has been updated a number of times.)

I booked our table at The Orange Tree in mid August. My original request was whether they did a vegetarian tasting menu - I did not ask if they could make us one specially. Vittorio confirmed that they did and asked for details to book.

I responded to prebook 2 vegetarian (not vegan) tasting menus for early Sept. My email was received and confirmed by Vittorio himself.

The photos added to this review clearly show this. Further to my original review I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone.

Original review: Disappointing vegetarian tasting menu.

In short the food was not bad, but not great and ultimately not good value. I would not recommend this restaurant for vegan /vegetarian diners wanting a tasting menu experience.

I'm writing this review because I think it could easily be better and I hope the restaurant will consider these points as constructive criticism.

I'll begin again with some good points - the restaurant was cosy if a little tired and the staff seemed nice. Service was relatively quick too.

Now the more unfortunate points - I booked weeks in advance online, pre-booking 2 vegetarian tasting menus (£70 pp) with wine flights (£25 pp) £95 per person in total.

When we arrived we again requested the vegetarian tasting menu, and were given a brief rundown of the courses.

The courses were all vegan despite them having vegetarian options on the menu. Our tasting menu it turned out was just the vegan menu from top to bottom - however we had cheese as our dessert rather than the chocolate. It felt lazy, unimaginative and added together the cost of all these courses ordered separately is only £67.50, and the wine £22.50. I think they realised this, as the drinks we had on arrival were given on the house at the end of the meal. A nice gesture, but if we'd realised we were just getting the entire vegan menu we would have ordered different courses separately.

Now on to the courses - the overwhelming flavour of most courses was salt. 3 out of the 4 cooked courses were topped with pea shoots and truffle oil. Unfortunately we both dislike truffles, not the restaurants fault but it's a pervasive smell and it would have been nice to taste a range of flavours across the courses.

The roast parsnip looked the best, but was ultimately not very exciting or tasty to eat. The gnocchi was quite stodgy. We left full but not excited by the experience.

One final point - we didn't complain about the food or ask for no truffle oil. The main reason for this is because when experiencing a tasting menu we choose to trust the chef and enjoy stepping out of our comfort zone to try ingredients we don't usually like.

We chose the restaurant based on it's inclusion in the Michelin guide and inclusion on several lists of best places to eat in Torquay. While it might be great for meat eaters, for vegetarians it is...

Was the worst tasting menu I have ever had. Was looking forward to going there for a special occasion . Thought I'd have the taster menu which I expected would showcase the best the chef had to offer. I was bitterly dissapointed . The bench mark was set low with industrial part baked bread rolls. Better are to be had a hundred yards down the road at the local supermarket the coop . 2 big bowls of soup were served which I thought was a bit heavy for a taster menu. The 2 slices of duck breast were a little dry .the presentation was fair enough although a bit dated by today's standards with decoration consisting of flowers and pea shoots. The main course (beef)was stuck to the plate although the taste was good .the sauce had been reduced so much that it was like super glue (not that I've tried eating super glue) I over heard someone else in the restaurant complaining that the meat was stuck to the plate. The vegetables were very poor and poorly presented for this particular menu. The beans were very underdone not even cooked to al dente and the dauphinoise potatoes the driest I've ever had. For pudding they had run out of what was mentioned on the taster menu so my freind had a melange of whatever was left over. I had the cheeseboard this was nicely presented . Came with olives although unless I was prepared to pick them out with my fingers no cutlery was offered . As far as decor is concerned quite intimate although dated. But the carpet was noticeably sticky underfoot not so good. When it came to the bill no discount was offered and in fact I could hear the chef complaining that I had underpaid by £100 . This was not the case .the waitress collected the credit card to process leaving the cash on the table .I heard her calming him down assuring him the balance was on the table. (Not really a discussion you want to be hearing ) the front of house manager said that they had a problem with the ovens which is why the bread rolls were poor. However a week later freinds visited and were given the same rolls so makes you wonder ? I thought this was a Michelin star recommended restaurant. I might be mistaken 🤔 there are other restaurants near by charging maybe a nominal amount more for a taster menu but so much better and worth the extra. Needless to say I won't be returning. I really think that if they didn't have the provisions in place they should have simply warned us at the beginning and asked us to choose from the al a carte instead. . Also I paid £10 more than the price advertised without...

Very disappointing. I’m not sure where the reviews have come from on this but they don’t reflect the actual food. As you walk into the orange tree you are immediately thrown back into an early nineties Italian Restaurant - plinkety plonk Musac playing and pictures of Italian scenic views etc… The starters priced at £14:50 were not great. The crab bisque was watery , over salted and probably not homemade. The Parmigiana was adequate. Bread was also offered and this was the little part cooked rolls you buy at sainsbury’s - I should have walked at this point. The main courses were worse ( if that’s possible ) - I had the chicken supreme , cheap cut chicken which was watery and definitely not free range or even of any decent quality. The sauce was tasteless and runny again. The asparagus was undercooked. My wife had the Hake - she said it was ok but it was missing both the Samphire and Spinach which were described in the menu. The menu says the restaurant offers the best of the South of Devon - yet it serves Scottish bottled water when other restaurants offer local Devonshire bottled water. The petit fours at the end were delicious - laughably we were told that the petit fours were actually baked by the chef - insinuating nothing else was 🤦‍♂️ The waitress was excellent. The Orange Tree is a failing restaurant , with a chef who is either under qualified or just doesn’t care. The owner is buying very cheap ingredients and is either deliberately not noticing how sub standard the fayre is or is deluded into thinking it...