The Plough — Restaurant in England

What a disaster!

This review gets one star, purely because you can't give it zero.

Perhaps there was a clue when we went in, as there were more staff than customers.

Little to no effort by the bar staff, one of whome was sat on a stool behind the bar. "If you're wanting to eat just sit at a table and order at the bar"

The menu available had little resemblance to what was on the website, just a single sheet of somewhat crumpled paper.

Ordering at the bar was like a krypton factor challenge. Two meals, a pint of beer and a soda and lime? Oh no, the young man on the bar couldn't find a button to press for soda and lime, so he offered lemonade? OK, can that be a lemon and lime? Erm, no, still no button to press! Eventually another staff member came to the rescue telling him to press lemonade and then a shot of lime??????

We went for the hand made steak and ale pie, and the beer battered fish and chips. Not sure who's hands made it?!

The pie was very small for the £15.50 price tag. Accompanied with barely one serving spoon of mashed potato and less than a spoon of peas. The mash had been very careful manipulated with a pattern to try and throw you off how little there was. The pie crust was very close to being burnt and was so hard it could have had a better role in filling potholes in the road. Within the pie I did find all 4 tiny pieces of steak submerged in a slime that I think was supposed to be gravy. The teaspoon full of extra gravy in a thimble sized jug was pretty tasteless. On the plus side, the peas were OK, ish.

The fish and chips were served accompanied with their very own oil slick. It was actually running across the plate. The oil fully soaked a napkin which had to be placed under the tartar sauce pot to stop it doing its own version of dancing on ice! To make matters worse, the oil was putrid, dirty and smelly. The tartar sauce was also sour and inedible. Again not worth the £14.95 price tag.

We made our disappointment known to the young man, who simply gave a little giggle as he took the plates away, saying "I'll let chef know". A young lady did then come to apologise for the food and offered a couple of free desserts to compensate.

With hindsight, we should have cut and run, probably to Lidl. However, we were persuaded to have the desert. I know, I know, hand made sticky toffee pudding was probably asking for trouble. The other deserts was cheesecake, surely you can't get that wrong? Oh he'll yes!!! The sticky toffee pudding had clearly been nuked by chef Mike (microwave). The toffee sauce was splattered up the sides of the dish. The outside of the pudding was barely warm but was rather tough, a little like foam rubber, and the inside was glowing like Mt Vesuvius. So, you might ask what about the cheesecake? That too had been given to chef Mike!!! Who the hell serves hot cheesecake????? The Plough at Alnwick! This too was brought to the attention of the staff, who's response was, that's how we serve it, don't you like it?

I would tell you our response, but I doubt it would clear censorship criteria!

What a pitiful disgrace to the catering industry this place is. There is no excuse for lazy, incompetent and inept staff, who have clearly given up.

Please put the paying public out of their misery, close the place and turn it into a Tesco express, the quality would be...

Just go to your nearest McDonalds.

We had booked in ahead of time for a 16:30 meal, we arrived about half an hour early and were told we could only sit out front while they prepared our table. Fair enough, we were early, thats on us, thats to be expected.

We went inside at our booked time to be told they’d just had 90 guests in over lunch and the kitchen wasn’t ready. The reviews seemed to suggest that the place is popular, so on the surface it would appear that 90 people over lunch could be possible. Frustrating, since we had booked a table, but these things happen, we were told we would need to wait 15 minutes for the kitchen to reopen and we were taken to our table to wait.

45 minutes later we asked how much longer it would be, we were informed the kitchen had opened ten minutes previously and we had not been informed.

I should add for clarity the restaurant appeared to be dead, no other diners, it should certainly have been possible to informed us they were ready at the bar to take our order.

The restaurant advertises itself as dog friendly, having free dog treats available, as well as having complete dog meals available to purchase, which would be wonderful, were it not for the fact that the staff didnt know how to process the item, offering it to us, then timidly admitting that they couldnt, actually, because they didnt know how. There was some back and forth about ordering something for the dog we had with us, eventually settling on a childs fish finger meal. A small thing, but shows the staff are not particularly well trained.

Our food eventually arrived at 1750, 40 minutes after we had ordered and 80 minutes since we sat down at our table, and the food? Oven chips, ratty bits of cremated fish, it looked like most of the scampi had scarpered, peas that had likely just gone from can to plate, pasta we should have passed on. We were so hungry I was contemplating eating the napkins and beer mats.

We were offered a strange excuse for food being delayed, something about radios working and not being able to contact the kitchen.

Always an excuse in this venue, it was very clear we were disappointed with the experience and it was very clear the staff were aware it was not a great experience, we were not even offered an apology. The member of staff responsible for our table didn’t even escalate this to a manager.

We left as quickly as we could, skipping further...

This is my VERY WORST hotel experience ever. I was staying 2 nights 5th and 6th August 2025. On arriving I wasn't massively impressed by my welcome but I was staying just 2 nights - however my stay got worse with time. I was paying £125 per night. My room was a twin room and shabby. Mismatched furniture with damaged surfaces. Just one bedside table and lamp. Water stain on the shower room ceiling and the light not working over the basin therefore difficulty to apply makeup. Poor water flow to the shower. A toilet with macerator that appeared to be continuously going throughout the night. Very dirty windows and frames. A wardrobe that was stuffed full with a spare bed making it impossible to hang clothes. The first night was OK but going down to breakfast I found that the breakfast was not included in the price of £125 despite it saying so on booking.com. The staff member I spoke to was very dismissive about this fact saying 'she'd emailed them so what more can she do'. In addition, the chef was ill that morning so breakfast wasn't available inhouse anyway. I asked her to arrange for the light in the shower room to be fixed which she agreed to do then I left for the day. On returning that evening at around 6.00pm I found that the bar/restaurant were locked up and in darkness and I had to access by the back fire escape. The place was totally shut down and any room guests were left to their own devises. The fire escape/security door was not functioning correctly - on closer inspection I discovered a screw had been screwed into the door flame to stop it closing. As a woman travelling alone it was alarming to discover that the only thing separating me from the outside world was my bedroom door! No surprise therefore that my bathroom light had not been fixed nor had the teas and coffees been replenished. I did call the hotel number a number of times for assistance but it was just ringing out. What would I have done if I had lost my key and/or really needed assistance??? I complained bitterly to the same member of staff the following morning stating that I would never have booked a hotel that was unmanned through the night and listed the above issues. Under sufferance she gave a refund. I have no objection to paying £125 per night but expect value for money. The Plough in Alnwick should not be in business with their current level of staff...