The Partridge — Restaurant in England

This is my 2nd visit to the Partridge since the new Manager and I have to say likely my last unless there is a change! The pub itself, beautiful, the staff, friendly and helpful enough, the food absolutely superb along with a fantastic Head Chef, who on both occasions we saw talking to guests and on our first visit, myself about my dish! Love that touch! What is absolutely shocking is the Manager who has been appointed to such a quaint setting! Harsh, stony faced and bitterly defensive.

Considering Timpsons (Who own the chain) have a motto of "only hiring the best personalities to serve you" in this case couldnt be further from the truth. 1st visit was family. to be brief, my sister & husbands cocktail was incorrect (We watched the bar staff struggling to make it) she politely advised the waitress that they had missed an ingredient out, which the girl admitted, we all laughed it off and she said she would change them. In comes the Manager, no apology, really loud & quite in our faces, explaining how she is used to free pouring in her old bar in Tenerife!? She made us feel quite guilty of the fact that we had pointed out the error. Its worth noting another customer in at the same time also complained about their cocktail. However given the food was excellent, I decided to give it another go (maybe she had a bad day!)

I booked a table for 15 as I have been looking for a new place for my colleagues to stay overnight and a few of them wished to check out the food.This was prebooked on the Christmas Menu. I had organised Management to join us from across the UK. The Manager came to take our drinks order and was once again really aggressive and blunt toward those ordering. Even a couple of eye rolls thrown in for good measure.

The food, once again was beautiful, starters were hot and on time. No one came to take a second drinks order and the wait in between for mains was really long. We never mentioned it. We were then 3 mains short and this was an issue as they apparently hadnt any spare (!?) Our waiter apologised and said he would see what he could do. At this point i would expect such an establishment (or any actually) to have the manager come over to explain or apologise. She didnt. The waiter advised that they had prepared incorrectly and would try to have the food out asap. The food eventually came and was cold an raw. Still no Manager.

Our MD (who was paying) went to seek out the Manager to ask what the issue had been as we pre ordered weeks before and surely if there were 15 starters there would be 15 mains, so at point of serving up or reading the pre order this would have been noticed. She initially tried to tell him that our order was wrong and hide their own error. When he explained that our waiter had been truthful and up front she then admitted they were short staffed. No offer of apology or a gesture of good will. He then asked her could we order more drinks. Second round came, and still no sign off management coming to her customers to apologise or make any offer.

We decided to wait until we paid to see if the problem would be brought up. It wasnt!! We embarrassingly had to raise it and ask why we were paying for meals that were inedible and arrived after everyone had finished. We were barked at that she would take off the second drinks round (soft drinks). Given her attitude so far and loss of patience (We had been in for pre-ordered 2 courses for over 2 hours!!!) we advised this wasnt really good enough, to which she begrudgingly removed the 3 meals. If looks could kill we all wouldn't have left the place!

The embarrassment that I had recommended this place for people to travel far and wide to eat at is terrible! We were considering this as our go to for team meals and overnights but unfortunately Flock Inns, you have lost a potentially great customer in our company!

Food and settings, lovely, waiting on staff, good to excellent. Manager, absolutely shocking! Argumentative and sullen. Get a new Manager before it affects your business, someone better suited for a quaint sleepy...

Food was nice but here's the thing, I can cook nice food, so can most people. We all eat out because we get SERVICE and because we get looked after. That's the point. Is that not something the Partridge owners understand? It's not rocket science. When someone wants to move tables outside to inside, you should show gusto and enthusiasm, because you are trained and paid to provide SERVICE not just bloody grunt that tables might be reserved and leave paying customers to move their own things and find a free table themselves, you LAZY LAZY people. It doesn't matter that people have reserved tables, why is that relevant? If you have free tables then how about being bothered to help PAYING customers to move tables. We paid for our food just like anyone else and don't forget that I TURNED UP AND PAID, whereas some reservations may not bother. All that matters is that you provide GOOD SERVICE, serve good food and receive payment to add to your gross margin. Dissatisfied customers who are hacked off with lacklustre service ie staff not being arsed to help, aren't going to come back and add to your income, and God knows all pubs need it these days. If I want to move tables why don't you just HELP or at least OFFER, why do I need to even ask for help!!! Isn't that part of the job? Jesus, it's hardly a rare request! Haven't any of you been to a European restaurant and seen how attentive staff are? Partridge pub = decent food (thank you chef) and diabolical service. A Disgrace. Oh yeah...and try not to bring starters with the main meal...the clue is in the word STARTER. Gob-smacking and beyond pathetic. No idea who owns this place but you need to be onsite to monitor the service. No food business can afford to lose income. I normally forgive bad service as being very English (hence the decent reviews I see here but we all know what English service can be like) but this place is also a hotel, not just a cafe, and should know better. So annoyed. Seriously, English service staff are the absolute worst (I'm English). Incidentally, just bringing food to tables isn't good service, that's just bringing food to tables, good service is judged by how you cope with issues or how attentive you are....

This was our first meal at the partridge since it's refurb so we called and asked if we should make a booking or would it be ok to just call in, they advised booking as they were very busy. We arrived promptly at 7.30pm, I think they were using a bit of poetic licence when they said they were busy. We told the waiter we had a reservation and he showed us to our table which was actually a booth similar to that of a high street café. Looking around the rest of the place there were maybe 5 or 6 tables occupied and a lot of empty ones, I struggle to think why we were shown to possibly one of the worst ones which they then began to wipe down and clear! We ordered a bottle of sauvignon blanc (without a wine menu or price list) and we received a 2018 version of a screwtop wine so probably no more than about £7 in the supermarkets, it was ok but ordering blind isn't my thing. So to the food, whilst the staff were pleasant enough, the menu sadly wasn't that good. I chose the crab cake to start, I expected a nice crisp outer coating with a fluffy inside of crab, I got a rather bland tasting and looking almost sloppy thing topped with an egg that was in several parts, and lots of fragments of crab shell, presentation, like the taste, was not good. Onto the mains, I had the excellent sounding beef brisket lasagne and my wife had the mushroom stroganoff. Initially, I was very happy with my choice but that sadly faded as I started to eat, there was very little sauce and the beef was very dry, the salad and garlic bread were good though. My wife's stroganoff was described in the menu as coming with a medley of mushrooms, sadly she was disappointed to discover there were only a few mushrooms and they were just standard button mushrooms, so much for the medley. And so to desert, I went for the baked chocolate cheesecake which was passable, even ok, my wife went for the vanilla slice, what she actually got was 2 dry pieces of puff pastry, a splat of weak custard no icing, just lots of chocolate sauce and icing sugar over the top of it presumably to hide the mess beneath, it really wasn't a slice of anything. We didn't bother with coffee and decided to get the bill, £25 for the wine! And £75 for the...