The Swan — Restaurant in England

I would not have even given them a star. We visited The Swan - Newbury and had an absolutely vile and unacceptable experience. We ( a family of 6 ) sat down in the restaurant Area and decided what we would like to order. On approaching the bar to order our food we were told that it was a 45 min wait, which we accepted and continued with our order We sat back down and after 30 mins the waiter came over and said that she was sorry but didn’t have half of the starters we had ordered. Not a great start but never mind, so we chose a different starter. Another 40 mins after that we finally received our starter (1hr 10 mins) after being told it’s a 45 min wait. The starters were ok and so we are them, we then waited another 40 mins before approaching who we now know to be as the chef and asked why there was a hold up with our mains. His exact response after me telling him that we had waited almost 2hrs was to look at his watch as if I was lying and then say “well you’ll have to wait unless you prefer a raw steak to come out” rather than being empathetic to our situation. He hen said it would be just a few minutes, so we waited 15 mins before approaching the bar staff to ask why our food was not brought out and why nobody had informed us. He was actually really apologetic (David I think his name was) and told us that it’s on the pass right now so just a minute or two. Another 10 mins after being told it was on the pass our terminally ill, 61 year old mother went to speak with the chef. As anpartially deaf lady she speaks slightly louder than the average human and therefore he thought she was shouting in which he told her to stop shouting at her which she wasn’t. She then asked where our mains were and why we had been waiting so long in which he denied ever speaking to me although everyone around heard him. A shout she was speaking to him the mains were brought out however the kids pudding was nowhere in sight. She asked him where their pudding was in which he replied “I don’t have a ticket” “tell me what you ordered” so she stated that the bar staff ran it through the till so you must have a record. After waiting 2 hrs we had forgot what the children asked for in which I told him that he must have a ticket in the kitchen which he responded “I’m not in the kitchen” so I told him to go and have a look rather than continue his argumentative attitude and behaviour. To which he became extremely aggressive and threatening, started pounding through the kitchen door shouting, smashed something on the other side and then started shouting at his colleagues. He then pounded back through the doors shouting to his colleagues “watch what happens, see what happens if they complain”. As he had gone into the kirch n we returned to the table, still horrified by what we had just witnessed and as we sat down it was clear to see that most of the order had been sat under a heater for quite some time and had dried out and become bland & the scampi was burnt. By this point my 9yr old daughter and her 9yr old cousin were so scared they wanted to leave, and we felt that actually the best option was to remove ourselves from an environment that had become extremely hostile and threatening to us. We didn’t want to go to the bar to ask for a refund as we were worried hat he would come back and become violent! So we left! £70 our of pocket between us and left with a fear of ever visiting a sizzler. I would like to know what is going to be done firstly to compensate us not only for the food that we had ordered and were unable to eat but for the emotional damage that had been caused to my child, my terminally ill mother who had enough to deal with and to us! I am appalled that you would hire such a horrific human to work in a customer based environment and whether this is common practice for your staff! If I do not hear back within 24-48hrs I will be taking this much further as I am not allowing the fact that we went out to enjoy some food and family company but instead couldn’t enjoy a single thing and were left scared for...

Where do I even begin absolutely disgraceful. Rude unhygienic and disgusting avoid like the plague!! Arrive with my family on a far from busy Tuesday early evening to be greeted by no staff to sit us down once self seated we ordered through the app which came to a total of £50 which I think is far from negotiable 1. We had managed to eat our entire starter by the time anybody had though about making our drinks and when they finally made it to the table there was no ice the glasses were definitely not cleaned as you could still see the last person drink marks in the glass which is far from acceptable then for mains I orders the hunters chicken and from someone who has been a sous chef for the past 6 years I think it is appalling then to make it even worse the supposed “cook” forgot to put bacon in the hunters chicken which is one of the main parts of the dish and it wasn’t even a chicken breast it was a cut off mini fillets from the breast and it was thrown onto the plate absolutely disgusting and no worth a single penny of what I paid resulted in walking out leaving half of our meals on the table must avoid and more than disappointed...

An Inedible Insult.

I visited The Swan with some friends for Sunday lunch & it was probably the worst meal I've ever been served. After asking a waitress if the lamb was served pink & then double checking with her that she was certain this was the case, I was eventually given two ruined slices of meat overcooked to the point that it was utterly grey & leathery (literally inedible). The gravy was evidently out of a packet as it was viscous & thick with corn starch, accompanied by soggy greasy potatoes & vegetables, possibly tinned or frozen, so overcooked they were a mush.

This is the only time I've ever been presented with a genuinely inedible roast dinner. To make matters even worse the duty manager & waiting staff were fully aware of the problems as they commented to that effect, yet no attempt was made to address them. All in all the staff seemed to view it as a bit of a joke, one even quipping "We'll see you soon will we?", so that our meals weren't so much of a disappointment as an outright insult.

edit: Over two years later & I'm still awaiting a reply from the manager, who I was promised would get back to me "in a...