The Willett Arms — Restaurant in England

Update 2018

Visited again today, as before, good decor, lovely staff (2 busy staff to serve the entire restaurant and coped admirably), a bit slow but not bad.

I ordered the Buttermilk Southern Fried Chicken, and it was TIDDLY, others on the table commented later they felt a bit sorry for me... I mean carried the flavour but it was a bit dry to boot. @ £14 it needed to be a large chicken breast, again disappointed. Great sweetpotato fries but they didn't compensate.

Sorry guy 2*

2017 The staff, decor and atmosphere were excellent, the food was 4. But the prices, speed of service on a Sunday and stingy beef rib-eye portion was disappointing and push my review back to 3, value for money was "ok" on those terms.

I will go back and try again, it was a pleasant experience overall and I may just have had a one-time bad run of luck.

In more detail: Portion vs Price: After seeing generous portion of chicken breast with the wing and a leg, my hopes were high for the beef rib-eye. But although very tasty, adorned with a beautiful Yorkshire pudding, good quality horseradish sauce, veg, the beef itself was a single slice, approx 5mm thick. @£15 this was, by my measure, stingy at best. The kids portion was nearly as large as mine. This was not great value for money.

Speed: On arrival at 1pm the Willett Arms was no more than 2/5 full, a busy garden but otherwise quieter than I imagine it would be. It was still relatively quite when we ordered but the food took quite some time to arrive, on this occasion the staff proactively apologised for the slow service after about 30mins, and comp'ed us some bar snacks, good customer service. The food arrived hot, well plated, and with no sign of deeper kitchen problems. But on a Sunday when roast are headlining the kitchen should be more then ready for this. I noticed the couple behind us also had to wait, possibly longer than us, and received an...

Went today for a spot of lunch off the fixed price lunch menu(maybe there was an ala carte menu available too, we weren't offered it).

Two vegan soups to start, with what appeared to be mozzarella(yoghurt maybe?) on top and a pate. All the toast was slightly burnt, which tbf I like but my companions not so much.

While waiting to be cleared for 20 minutes and being ignored by the barman for the 2nd time(he delivered food elsewhere, looked at our table needing to be cleared and walked on) we took it upon ourselves to remind them we were done. Normally I wouldnt do this but we were next to a large booking who had just arrived and I know as a former chef the kitchen would be desperate to clear current tickets before their order came in, meaning my hot mains is likely sat under the hotlights waiting.

The mains came 60 seconds after we asked to be cleared and sure enough my poached egg(with the fishcakes) was so overcooked the yellow had started blackening and the cakes were soggy where the egg had sat between them. I sent it back, got attitude that it was fresh and correct but we will replace it anyway. My friend had made a mistake with my sides and they were replaced free of charge and even the replacement fishcakes came with a fresh salad, which was lovely(although the salads were slaw more than salad, no leaves, which imo is very odd).

Overall, it's not awful but from such a beautiful establishment sitting right in the goldilocks of price the lack of staff and training really let's this place down. 2 front of house for 30+ sit downs in a large venue is not enough.

I won't be returning and I urge the owner if you want to thrive you need to invest in a passionate head chef(deep fried fishcakes doesn't cut it in 2024, nor does calling mashed sweet potato 'hummous') and have enough front of house members that the unfair level of pressure placed upon them doesn't ooze out quite...

We eat out regularly for Sunday lunch, not wanting to travel too far over Easter we decided to try the Willet Arms after it was recommended by a friend. Service was fair to be honest and the young lady serving us was helpful and polite. However the food was a complete letdown, I opted for the chicken liver Pate which again was fair, except the bread was barely toasted and consisted of 2 very small slices and minimal for the size of the Pate, My wife went for Salt and Pepper Squid with no cause to complain. We had to wait a considerable time for the main course to appear, approximately 40 minutes. In the meantime the table next to us were served and after several minutes were complaining about their food being cold and barely cooked and to be honest it really looked bad. When ours finally arrived my fillet steak looked good and cooked as expected and again to be fair was edible and tasty, however the garlic prawn addition was 4 insipid looking prawns, had no garlic butter and almost cold. My Wife went 4 the trio roast dinner, firstly it was really cold, the roast potatoes were more boiled than roasted, Yorkshire pudding was soggy and very poor quality, the vegetables were barely cooked and again cold, the gravy very watery with no substance and cold, causing her to complain. The waitress got her some fresh potatoes and gravy which had obviously been put in the deep fat fryer to brown off and the gravy was piping hot. My question is why get it right the second time when it really needed to be right the first time? I can’t understand it! The sweets were good and no reason to complain followed by 2 Irish coffees which were also good and hot. Personally I would not go back or recommend it by any means. If I could make a reasonable suggestion it would be to sack the chef/chefs who obviously have no real catering knowledge,or take any pride in what they dish up and start again...