White Hart — Restaurant in England

Very poor customer service. AVOID Table booked via phone in advance for 60th. Asked for us to be seated together as birthday gathering. 8 adults, 1 child. Called the restaurant on the day, to make sure everything was fine for our reservation. Told by the female manager that we will not be seated together as they have a limit to how many people can sit at one table and because we had one extra we had to have two tables, which is fair enough. She had quite an attitude. Upon arrival we waited outside TOGETHER. No social distancing from those queuing to enter the pub. We had already gave them the Birthday balloons and cake on arrival. We went inside to the little room, where one of our tables was located. The manager rushed us before we had all even stepped into the building, telling us that only 5 of us could sit here. We took 1-2 minutes to decide who was sitting where as we were not expecting to be seated so far apart. When asked why we were being seated in two different rooms her response was that we were being placed where the 'system' wanted to place us as it was two table bookings (which we were not aware of). We mentioned that we had said on the phone that this was a party and that we'll need to be close together, she then said 'the notes don't get checked everyday'. She kept rushing us as if it was some sort of military operation. The other big table in the same room was apparently 'reserved' so the rest of our family couldn't sit there. The females sat down at that table and the other half of our party was taken through into the bigger room. They were seated at the very far side, only a table away from a couple sat eating their meal. Nearly every table in that big room was empty and remained empty. Why we couldn't of been seated closer together I do not understand, even if we had to leave a vacant table between us to meet their social distancing rules. We ordered our meals, a few dishes/sides not available. Food was nothing special, just standard pub food. I've had better meals at the cheaper 2 for £10 pubs. My mum confronted the manager about her bad attitude. Midway through our meal three men arrived and sat at the BIG table opposite us. I don't see why it would of been too much of problem for them to have swapped them with the table in the bigger room, or just move us into the bigger room so we could be together, maybe it was just too much effort for them? Surely it is safer for our family to sit close together than it is to sit next to three strangers? Not to mention the whole time we were seated there was barely a meter distance between the passing staff and other customers. We used a wet wipe to wipe our table after eating, only to see how filthy the table was, the wet wipe was completely black. It was 32 degrees outside, we could only see four tables inside that were occupied, everyone else was seated outside. We left a lot of our meal. We were told off for going outside to the rear of the pub, and my brother was even told off for talking to his own 4 year old daughter because 'she was from a different table'. This waitress then cried when my brother questioned why he wasn't allowed to care for his 4 year old daughter. We all went to the front of the pub, we sat out the way to the left of the entrance at a table. The waitress who cried earlier came out and told us we could not be together. The male manager was stood behind her with our bill, as we clearly couldn't be trusted to not run off without paying despite other people sitting outside. Not judgemental of them at all. We told them how awful their service had been, which upset them enough to ask us to leave. We said no, we still had drinks to finish. Birthday cake was forgotten. We were not loud, we had a maximum of two alcoholic drinks each, we were causing no trouble at all, we gave them no reason for them to ask us to leave. They then sent out the chef, he was incredibly mouthy going on about how we need to leave and how we've upset his staff. They obviously thought they could intimidate us into leaving by sending out...

Having enjoyed a fabulous lunch at The White Hart around a month ago I decided to bring my partner and my parents for an evening meal on Tuesday 02/11/21 and to take advantage of the 50% off steak offer.

Although all of the staff members we encountered were very welcoming and friendly and provided great service, the food was VERY DISAPPOINTING on this occasion. The 4 of us all ordered 8oz fillet steaks and when they food arrived, the steaks had a peculiar look to them - instead of being a uniform shape which is how we would expect them to look, they had the appearance of a hunk of meat literally having been chopped off a cow. Most peculiar! The steaks were also quite chewy and sinewy which you don't expect for a fillet cut and they also had a seasoning taste which 2 of my party didn't like. After our main course, I asked the waitress what the meat had been seasoned in prior to cooking and she gave a list of things, one of which was Rosemary, which is an extremely pungent herb. I am surprised that there is no mention on the menu of the seasoning which is used on the steaks before cooking as Rosemary in particular is a strong and powerful taste which totally overwhelmed 2 of my parties taste buds and they were only able to eat part of the steaks and gave the remainder to another person in my party. None of us particularly enjoyed the triple cooked chips either but we ate what we could as we didn't want to cause a fuss in a busy pub. The chips weren't very plentiful (thankfully!) or warm and had a taste like they'd been cooked previously and then reheated. The welsh rarebit topped mushroom was nice and my dad also loved the watercress!

We also ordered puddings (rather pricey @ £6.95 each!) and really enjoyed the dark chocolate brownie and peanut butter ice cream but my partner ordered the baked blueberry cheesecake which was duly bought to the table sat in a puddle of something on the plate. Again there was no mention on the menu of the cheesecake being served with anything other than berry sauce but my partner dipped his spoon in the pale yellow coloured liquid and concluded that is was cold custard which he hates! If you're going to serve desserts in this way, you really should make people aware of what they come with as that way they can ask for them to be served to their particular preference. The cheesecake was promptly replaced, minus the cold custard, and my partner said that it was delicious. We had intended to order the sticky toffee pudding (£7.95 each!) but none were available at the time of our visit.

In conclusion, it is a shame that our experience at the pub on this recent visit was very disappointing and that the food was not up to the same standard as I'd had during a previous lunchtime. It is always galling having to spend money on things you've not enjoyed but at least the blow was softened a little because the steaks were discounted by 50%. I don't plan to return anytime soon after this visit which is a shame because the location and the ambience of the pub is really lovely but the food really wasn't...

We booked a table for four today for Sunday lunch, as my daughter and son in law had told us that thy had had an excellent Roast just recently. My wife, who normally opts for the pork, thought she would try the beef, but really doesn’t like it overcooked and dry, so we specifically asked the young lady waiting table if it was possible to have rare cooked beef. We were assured that this was no problem and so ordered. When it arrived it had clearly been ‘thoroughly’ cooked. When I politely pointed out to the man who delivered it to our table that it wasn’t what we were expecting, he replied that “there is only one sort of beef, Sorry”. This news was delivered in a bored monotone, with no further elaboration or any attempt at easing our disappointment. I reiterated that we had specifically checked on the thoroughness of the cooking prior to ordering and was once again reminded that “there was only on sort of beef.” I wouldn’t describe myself as a ‘foodie’ , but I do flatter myself on being able to tell whether two roasts, one burger and a pie are worth a hundred quid (we did have a pint and three soft drinks as well.) In this case, I would have to say regrettably not. The food scored a four out of ten, ( brought up to this dizzying high as my pie was actually pretty good.) However the dismissive attitude of the Manager……yes the Manager! as it turns out, takes our overall satisfaction level with this establishment way down. Hence the one star review. My daughter felt obliged to apologise to us, presumably feeling that her recommendation had cost us an unnecessary journey out of Bath. I feel bad for her, but I love her, so no hard feelings. I write all this lightheartedly as life is too short to rant and rave over things like this. I can see from lots of other reviews that maybe we were just unlucky. Perhaps on a different day we would have had a pleasurable experience and the manager would have come across as if he enjoyed being in a service industry. We...