The Swan Inn — Restaurant in England

We went here on a recommendation but sadly were disappointed.

The bad:

Attitude of owner/manager. We had a dinner reservation but when we came in nobody was there to greet us. We went to the bar and dealt with owner/manager. Grumpy attitude (as if he was doing us a favour begrudgingly) and were shown to a table, the worst table, right in middle. Cozy? Forget it. Asked to be moved to an empty table near the wall but were told that table had been reserved and would be needed back fairly quickly. Actually, it's worth mentioning that at first he responded with "But someone is sitting there!" Pointing to a couple in the corner. I looked at him incredulously, "That one, the empty one". How would he assume that I was asking for a table occupied by someone else? That is just weird. We passed on his offer and stayed at the middle table.

I went for the steak as it was a special occasion. £27 so I was expecting it to be very good. My mistake. Small steak with a lot of fat. Only a few chips. About half the amount you get if you ask for chips on the side. I know, I saw someone order chips on the side and it was twice as many. Petty? Maybe but things were starting to aggregate. No way was it worth £27. £16 at best and that is being generous.

When we sat down we were offered two menus and one contained what appeared to be excellent deserts. When it came to ordering the desert - that menu was not brought to us again or offered. We had to ask again for it. We enquired as to what one of the items was and were told by the waiter that the menu was new and he had no clue what it was. Great waiter training! Hopeless. He went to the kitchen to check but came back with information that was not clear at all. We skipped that option.

When the deserts came they were also disappointing. Mine was supposed to be sticky toffee pudding and ice cream. Small portion and very tasteless. The scoop of ice cream was the smallest I have experienced.

The other patrons. And to be fair, this is not the fault of the pub but it is worth pointing out. Also, I accept this is the only time I have been to the Swan Inn so this may not happen all the time. Families with kids with no discipline. They were running around screaming, opening the door letting the cold air in, playing games and basically acting like brats. The parents had astoundingly completely abdicated responsibility not caring at all about how this was impacting the experience of other diners. Embarrassing. Next we had 'mobile phone lady'. She took multiple calls, phone ringer on as loud as possible. I thought maybe a doctor on call but no, I overheard it was a request from someone to buy cigarettes. Great.

The pros:

The pub itself looks good in terms of decor. The pepper corn sauce that came with the steak was very good. Excellent in fact.

Conclusion: there is something not quite right about the Swan. Bad atmosphere, bad owner attitude, small and overpriced portions and if you want peace and quiet and other diners that have even basic etiquette then give the Swan Inn...

The Swan Inn at Denham used to be a firm favourite, with memorably good roast potatoes that came sizzling to your table, a whole roast chicken for you to carve freely from, and Yorkshire puddings the size of your plate. According to Google maps we hadnt been there for 4 years and sadly today the Sunday roast wasnt a patch on the roast it used to be. No lamb or chicken offered with the roast option, the Yorkshire oven was out of action (so they were bought in), no sticky toffee pudding (previously out of this world), no bakewell tart (another firm favourite). They were kind enough to serve us some chicken with the roast taken from another dish on request, and the roasts and greens were ok if lacking in flavour. The gravy erred on the watery and added little. The tastiest element was the cauliflower cheese, ordered as an extra side dish. We pushed around for a pudding and went for rhubarb crumble with custard, but this was borderline unpleasant because of a thin non crunchy crumble topping made of ginger biscuits that had absorbed the moisture from the fruit and a small jug of custard too narrow to put your spoon in to reach the last bit. We were reassured to see a careful consideration to keeping the tables well spaced with screen between so you felt safely distant from others, and the staff were friendly and efficient. I am sad that we might think twice before...

Very disappointed with our visit to The Swan. Beautiful looking pub and exciting sounding menu. We ordered the croquettes and crayfish starters, both without any seasoning which made the food tasteless. We ordered roasts our mains which looked very attractive but seriously lacked in seasoning and flavour. The meat was not cooked to our request which resulted in this being passed back to the kitchen. All Yorkshire puddings were burnt and yet still sent out on our plates which we again had to send back to the kitchen. The courgette fries were disgusting and a waste of money. Although we had so many issues with our food, the staff were not concerned and did not check on us again. The most attentive part of service was when 3 employees cleared our plates. Overall very disappointed with flavourless food and unattentive staff. We will not...