George & Dragon Epping — Restaurant in Epping Forest

Our dining experience was mostly memorable for being almost entirely unmemorable apart from dessert below. Forgot to take photos earlier on as we were with friends.

If you are vegan/vegetarian, there is a separate menu for you and on the main menu, everything is well marked. If you feel like more than roasted vegetables on couscous or tuna and sweetcorn on baked potato, you certainly have some options here.

Decor was fine. Staff were friendly. The main issue was the food.

Can only speak for what we had but the the grilled salmon which was cooked fine (but did not seem to have any crumb on it) and presented well although was declared mostly tasteless apart from the tomato and spring onion salsa. I didn't get the feedback on the Sweet Potato Massaman Curry as I was too busy "taking notes" on my meal.

The battered cod and chips was actually cooked well and well presented but parts tasted "fishy" in an unpleasant way. The tartare sauce was not great, actually not even good. Asked for some chilli sauce or tabasco and given "sweet chilli sauce" aka chutney! Chips were mixed - some were very good, some were dry and crumbly like leftovers from the previous evening. Oh, we swapped out the mushy peas for garden peas which were very overcooked and dry.

However, to finish off, we ordered the MINI dessert and coffee. The cappuccino was particularly weak and was actually a latte owing to the ratio of milk to coffee. The chocolate brownie was a good size and texture although tasted like it was not made with Belgian chocolate but rather with some sort of cooking chocolate sauce which may have come from the chocolate sauce that accompanied it though the ice cream was good.

However, the "highlight" of the evening was the mini lemon posset. It was laughable how mini this mini dessert was. I have included a series of photos to show exactly how pathetic this was and it was promptly sent back. It was brought with a dessert spoon that I don't believe would have even fitted into the ramekin - which was probably the same size as the tartare sauce container and not much larger than the tealight. Don't insult patrons with something like this. It was sent straight back.

Overall, George and Dragon did not cover itself in glory. There are many fine dining establishments nearby I would rather have visited. Pegottys for fish and chips is substantially better. We won't return.

Responding to Lailla:

Your sarcasm aside, the fish seemed fresh and was well cooked as noted BUT certain parts were unpleasant. Possibly the skin.

The seared salmon is not described as GF and YOUR menu states the crumb. If it isn't going to be there, don't describe it as such.

I know the desserts were mini. I was not negative on the chocolate brownie serving however, I will stick to my guns on the lemon posset. I know what it is and I have made my own and it is a simple dish. Your serving, even "at £2.50" was not worthy of the name mini. Micro would be better and minuscule better still.

If you don't believe you can offer more than a dessert spoon of double cream, sugar and lemon juice for £2,50 then rather don't offer it instead of making a derisory effort.

Either way, you have "guests" who are happy but my review was based on my experience and opinion. Other people can choose to visit and make up their own mind on whether their experience was adequate or closer to my experience.

Good luck but as mentioned, we...

Edit: The manager kindly apologized to us and offered us a full refund.

One of the worst experiences I've ever had in the UK! Me and my partner went there just for a drink but then we decided to give their steak selection a chance. We finally decided to have a chateaubriand to share with prawns cooked in chilli and butter as a side . Prawns : Literally 4 tiny prawns with tomato sauce and 2 tl slices of bread. So disappointing Best part.. chateaubriand: We ordered a RARE chateaubriand. As you can see from the picture, the steak was medium/ medium rare, not RARE for sure !! I immediately told the manager (a blonde girl). Surprisingly she didn't agree with my opinion and started to rudely find nonsense excuses like : " for me it's rare "(...please check the picture), "If you wanted it rare you had to tell us you wanted it blue to rare" (what ???), " If you want a new one, it's gonna take no less than half an hour" (trying to discouraging me carry on with my fair complaint). She then took the whole plate although we offered to keep the sides as nothing was wrong with them. She refused our offer and left annoyed, saying it was against their company policies. She came back over 5 minutes later, with the same plate (so, as you can imagine, everything was cold by then), saying very rudely that the chef refused to make it again and that we were wrong, as the steak was cooked the right way (once again please look at the picture). We gave up as we did not want our steak to get ice cold, hence not edible. So she left the plate on the table and we did not see her anymore. No apologies, nothing else offered, just rude and arrogant behaviour. Chateaubriand is an expensive cut and customers pay a lot of money for it(£56+)... We were just expecting chefs who deal with it to cook it and present it properly and managers to admit their mistakes. Clearly not happened tonight! Recommended for DRINKS ONLY as the ladies at the bar...

Never been to such a place in all my life.

My family and I booked to have our traditional Christmas Eve lunch at The George And Dragon Epping and what a mistake that was!

We stood up and left before our starters even had arrived due to an extremely rude waitress. This website unfortunately doesn’t allow me to name and shame this waitress on here but this woman’s behaviour is beyond unacceptable.

This waitress walked past my chair several times kicking the leg of my chair (which I did not think anything of as these things happen). I then hear this waitress moaning about me and the chair to another member of staff. This waitress then came charging past my chair again and deliberately kicked the leg of my chair very hard. … The most disgusting part of it all was I was feeding my baby in a high chair where the restaurant sat us!

After leaving the restaurant I wrote to them via Facebook messenger asking how to proceed forward with an official complaint and guess who replied to my message… THE RUDE WAITRESS HERSELF WHO KEPT KICKING MY CHAIR! She told me that the General Manager would be in touch. I wrote my official complaint via email instead so I did not have to speak to this waitress and the general manager wanted me to call her 2 days later as they were busy in the restaurant… (Why I had to call the general manager and she couldn’t of called me especially as I have wrote up an official complaint in writing I will never know!)

Once I finally got to speak to the General Manager (who will be the one replying to this review… shock!), she did not deal with my complaint and just stuck up for this waitress and saying she would never do that in such a way and all that she could do was apologise that I felt that way. Pack Mentality was definitely going on.

Other reviews also prove the staff at George And Dragon Epping are very rude, I just wished I looked up reviews before I...