Valhalla York — Restaurant in England

I've been to some shocking bars in my time but this one took the cake. After having it recommended to me for years for the supposed good food, ale and atmosphere, singing and friendly and involved vikings behind the bar, my advice to anyone would be to steer clear. The beer was top notch, that and the decor are the only high point of the entire experience. The 'platters' as they call them were missing half of the items, what I actually ended up with was a deconstructed ham butty with no butter, the toilets were a disgrace, I'd suggest the owner teach the incredibly rude, inexperienced and socially inept bar staff how to use a mop and bucket. The service itself was disgusting. I understand the owner likely wants cheaper labour by employing younger people behind the bar, however the staff are rude, entitled, look for excuses to be offended, and quite frankly malicious when it comes to customers. Things I witnessed them doing included screaming at a man for allegedly misgendering one of them, when what he actually did was apologise for tripping on the uneven floor and accidentally nudging into a staff member, they then stopped serving the gentleman. Another example is the outrageous treatment of a gentleman with autism related speech issues. I've noticed another review from this very person and you can even tell by the review wording itself that this is purely medical, the staff didn't care, and based on the reply from the owner neither does he.... for shame. Another example, a woman who was asked to leave the bar not being allowed to retrieve her handbag from the premises, the staff not caring and being entirely unreasonable, intentionally and knowingly causing her distress. I do suggest that the owner take this review as well as others as constructive criticism, learn from this, and either replace or vigorously drill into the staff members that they need to grow up, get off Tiktok and try to act like actual human beings. If you don't, a bar which has so much potential and should be a focal point of Jorvik Viking Festival is going to go right down the toilet, a toilet that also has not seen a bottle of bleach. Happily there were plenty of other bars dotted around York with much better atmospheres, nightlife, food and service, so a lovely weekend...

After reading some of the poor, but funny reviews by what can only be described as idiots who don't understand licencing laws and manners, I decided to leave a gleaming review (I was going to anyway).

So, here goes.

Wife and I who are huge viking fans and fellow pagans went here, naturally, and immediately fell in love with the decor as it reminded us of our viking wedding and festival attendances. It's small and cosy but given the age of the building, it really isn't a problem. It's how it would have been. However, plenty of room in the next 2 floors with exquisite decorations and homely surroundings.

We were hungry.... so ordered the ragnorok.. the dish to end the gods of hunger raging in our bellies! Ironically even acting as fenrir and eating odin wouldn't be enough.

It was big. Lovely perfectly cooked meats, the paprika fries, pork, chicken, meatballs, everything. Wonderful!

The mead... now... I have to say as a meadmaker myself, sampling them was a joy as they taste like mine! A compliment of huge proportions, or huge reassurances, take it what way you wish but they were lovely. People may be put off the price but for what you get and the process involved, worth it... every drop. Don't waste mead!

The staff were brilliant and were true valkaries of food and booze. Felt like I was on the great hall!

Highly recommended even if you are, or are not, a viking loving norse adoring hungry pagan.

Management, don't listen to the obviously moronic people who don't know UK licence laws.

Keep it up, stay great, stay (bi)frosty, and... a huge great...

Snowflake bar staff easily offended for no reason. Had a hissy fit and started shouting sos into his walky talky in distress for no bouncers to come to his aid. So one of the group went and got him help. It was hilarious.

What wasn’t hilarious though was after one of the security threatened to ruin our whole night in York (even though we were very cooperative and offered to leave peacefully) he went ahead and tried anyway. Sent a picture and description of one of the group that wasn’t even involved but was wearing distinctive clothing, to any bars using the same security. I’m guessing the reason for this was that the hissy fit was “caused” by someone wishing to a disability.

One of the 2 security guys was actually really kind and helpful telling us to enjoy the rest of our night and apologising for the way the staff had acted. However the other one was very rude and obviously power hungry and seemed to enjoy trying to create a scene that wasn’t needed. I must say though lads if your not responding to cry’s of help from the bar staff for over 10 minutes it’s a big problem of safety. Imagine something actually bad was happening to snowflake (or maybe it happens often for them to care enough)

Owner was rude also. Happened to bump into her later on in the night. Person involved in the miss understanding tried to apologise (again) and was met with hateful, derogatory and anti...