Xavier's Café and Wine — Restaurant in England

Mediocre. The place was empty on a Sunday lunchtime. This should have been a warning to us! This place obviously does well with drinkers but how they manage to keep up the food side of things from what I saw is questionable. We were the only ones in the place and asked for 2 'Full Xaviers'. This took 40 minutes. The food was ok. Nothing special. On paying the bill I mentioned the seemingly long wait time, and the response was 'well you wouldn't want undercooked sausages would you?'!! Any cafe that takes 40 minutes to produce two full Englishes' won't be in business for long. I wouldn't like to consider how long we would have had to wait had it been remotely busy. Sadly, the only disappointment wasn't the food. Our server had food in his beard which was unprofessional. No condiments on the table. Had to ask for them. We asked for water for the table and were given one glass of water! Maybe it was to share??? We were not asked about any more drinks. Our plates were not cleared. On leaving the toilets were grim. They clearly hadn't bothered to clean them after a busy Saturday night. If you don't have a bladder and you like a drink this is the...

Headline: This establishment is a MUST visit if you are in Penrith. Don't even think twice, just go!

I would easily give this more stars if I could. We were visiting Penrith and intrigued by the description of Xavier's online, but it did not disappoint. We were served by Jack, who offered to make us any cocktail we liked. As we weren't cocktail experts, he asked us some questions to get an idea of what we liked, and we both ended up with cocktails we were really happy with. We tried a few of their wines as well, served by the impressively knowledgeable Ben - they really do have a massive wine collection - and were impressed by their choices for us. The tapas is excellent too. You really can't go wrong with camembert. And then we had a lovely chat about the Jubilee with the owner, James.

Thanks so much to James, Jack, Ben and Clauda for a lovely experience. If we're ever back in the Lake District, Xavier's has been added to our list of return...

We discovered this place by chance when shopping in Penrith a fortnight ago - we live around 22 miles away. We drove past and thought it looked cosy and welcoming so once we had finished shopping we made our way there. The waiting staff were lovely and fitted us in even when they were really busy as it was Valentine's Day. The food was absolutely delicious, we had tapas and seven items was more than enough for the two of us. The bill came to around £55, which we thought was excellent value for money. We were so impressed that we made a special trip back two weeks' later and, once again, the service was fantastic and the food was amazing. The bar/restaurant is cosy and comfortable and the atmosphere was friendly and lively. We will definitely be going back again. Highly...