Wildwood — Restaurant in England

We’ve visited York many times and have just left this place. We ordered a hot chocolate which was just warm milk - all the chocolate was congealed at the bottom. We also ordered a bottle of wine which we had to open and serve ourselves, not the service you’d expect in an Italian restaurant paying over the top prices for a wine that tasted like it was a £3.99 bottle from Aldi.

Food arrived, we had to request a bigger table because of the size of the garlic bread plate, the waiter had tried to place my meal against the wall at a 45 degree angle! The table was far too small for the plates and glasses. We had to practically move everything over to the new table ourselves, not much help from the waiter.

Garlic bread was very undercooked, we had to send it back and ask to be cooked more.

Seafood linguine came with chilli pieces that were far too big for a person to eat, muscles that were either empty or closed and only a couple of small prawns added to it with three pieces of squid.

Told the waiter when asked if it was okay that it wasn’t and he said he would let the manager know. A lady we assumed it was a manager returned with our garlic bread now cooked and told us she would let the chef know, however no replacements to the missing or closed muscles appeared or any alterations to the poorly delivered dishes either.

At the end of the meal the manager came over to us with the bill and told us she had applied a discount which turned out to be just taking off the service charge that they automatically add to every meal.

Another waitress came to take our money and I told her I wasn’t happy about this as a discount of £7 for a £63 meal that wasn’t up to standard and service that was far from adequate was literally taking the proverbial.

The waitress then said she would have another word with the manager who then sent her back over to tell us they had taken off £20 from the bill. A much better discount and what was expected.

When I questioned where the manager was and could she not be bothered to talk to us herself we were met with no comment. The restaurant was empty aside from ourselves and one other table and the manager was just sat on her backside pretty much the whole time. As a business owner myself I would have made the effort to personally deal with the complaints and correct them immediately instead of sending over the poor staff several times and I also would have replaced dishes or sorted out the discount correctly first time without having the costumer need to mention it at least twice, it was embarrassing for us and your staff.

Shocking behaviour from her leaving her poor waiters and staff to deal with any complaints instead of dealing with them herself, no wonder the place was empty. Everywhere is struggling to gain business and this kind of service and sloppy food delivery has certainly made me think twice about spending my hard earned money in a place that doesn’t care about what it delivers or how to make the customers feel.

Do yourselves a favour, there are over 600 places to eat in York, do not make this one of them and save your money and go elsewhere! We...

A very mixed bag - 2.5 stars

Been here before with a couple of friends and we really enjoyed it so chose it for our next meet up. The results were decidedly mixed.

We were seated quickly and drinks order taken in reasonable time. My pink gin and lemonade tasted rather like lighter fluid. Thought they'd probably just accidentally given me normal gin as the liquid had no pink tinge but was assured (a bit curtly) that it was definitely the raspberry. Got more lemonade in it but still no fruit or sweet taste so gave it up and gifted it to my friend (possibly along with a cold), unfortunate but not the end of the world.

The 3 of us shared starters of meatballs, garlic & mozzarella bread with caramelized onion and calamari. The meatballs were good, the parts of the bread that had cheese and onions on were lovely but that is only about half (the centre with a hoop of dry bread around it). The calamari was nice but looked and tasted very mass produced (breadcrummed and very uniform in appearance) rather than handmade, not worth £7.

My friends had the vegan philly sandwich and the spicy sausage risotto, both of which were reportedly very nice. I had the chorizo carbonara which was also nice although when brought to the table it was obvious that it had been under the heat lamp for a while by the skin that had formed on the sauce.

We also shared 3 sides; the sweet potato fries were good, the halloumi fries very nice although 6 for £5.50 seems a bit steep. The side of greens were a whole different issue. Three pieces of broccoli and a few green beans that look like they've been left to rot and then run over before being served! If you think I'm exaggerating, check out the picture I took, £4.25 for these professionally prepared delights! Note, there were a few more beans than in the picture, all edible ones were eaten.

The restaurant was busy so service wasn't particularly fast, that's understandable but the wait staff seemed a bit unimpressed in doing their jobs, not openly rude but a little curt.

We didn't stay for dessert in the end so can't review on this occasion, they were lovely on the previous visit but then so was everything else.

We got the bill quickly but then waited quite a while to pay. Started getting ready to go (hint hint) but had to sit for a good 5 minutes in coats (places to be!) before someone came with the machine.

Bottom line is; was the food nice? Overall, yes. Was the food value for money? No. We would not pay the same amount for the same meal again and therefore decided on a rating of 2.5...

Had an extremely disappointing experience at this restaurant. We ordered a starter, two kids' meals with white sauce pastas, and a vegetarian pizza—clearly stating multiple times that we wanted everything vegetarian and served together, as we were in a hurry.

Unfortunately, only the starter arrived on time. The rest of the food took over 45 minutes to arrive, and when it did, the pastas were cold with a thick, dry sauce. Worst of all, the "vegetarian" pizza came with bacon! We had to call the waiter/manager multiple times to get their attention, and despite such a huge mistake, there was no apology—just a casual "I'll replace it" as if they were doing us a favour. It then took another 30 minutes to bring the correct order, causing us to miss our plans.

Service was terrible. No one checked in to see if the food was okay, and even the kids' ice cream, which should have been served automatically in the end as part of meal, had to be requested. The person managing seating had a bad attitude and seemed selective in being friendly to certain customers.

I also noticed that the restaurant responds to bad reviews with a generic "please email us" or "will share it with the team" message, but based on others' experiences, they don’t actually do anything to improve. It seems more like damage control rather than a genuine effort to fix issues.

Overall, an absolute mess in terms of service, food quality, and customer care. Definitely would not recommend.

Update: As expected, I emailed customer care but there has been no response even after ten days. This proves what I mentioned earlier—asking for emails is just for show, and they have no real intention of addressing complaints. The lack of accountability...