The Fish And Eels — Restaurant in Epping Forest

Took my elderly Aunt for a meal on the 13/05/25 had a table for 4 booked 12:15. We sat outside for a few minutes bur although it was sunny my aunt was a little cold and we went inside to the original table we booked. Young lady arrived to take our order, two had starters and two did not, we were told that the mains would arrive when the starters were finished, that when it started to go wrong. The starters arrived 40 minutes later after asking for them twice, they were nice, but the two without food were starving. The four people on the next table were talking among themselves saying if their dinner did not arrive soon they would just up and leave, they asked and were told they are coming. We had ordered, finished our starters, the two who had no starter were now really hungry. We waited another 35 minutes then asked if our dinners were ever coming, and we were told very rudely by another woman who was full of tattoos and basically could have done with a wash, she was dirty hair greasy etc, that we were told at the start that meals would be served together, but not one hour and twenty five minutes after we all sat down, my elderly aunt (86) was by now getting hungry and very agitated, and the attitude of the scruff-bag did not help at all. When the food arrived two had ordered chicken and bacon salad, the chicken must have been cooked the day before as it was dry, very dry, there was no bacon on one plate and both plates had the Avocado missing, we did not have enough hours left in our lives to ask for the dinner plates to be served as they advertised.

We have used this pub since the early 90s and never had an experience as we had on this visit, it could be that I am getting on a bit along with my aunty, however the two other ladies with us are both in their late 40s and ready to rip into the aggressive woman behind the bar. I take my Aunt out at least once a month and have done for many years, however after that experience at a pub with a long reputation and a wonderful outlook, will not be taking any of my monies in the future, the experience was disgusting and whoever owns that pub I believe "Vintage Inns", would do well to buy the tattooed woman some shower gel and put her on a customer care course along with a full review of the kitchen procedures. Pointless to say wont be going back there ever again, "The Black Swan" down the road has much more accommodating staff and a so much more customer...

One star if any to be sadly frank!

Absolutely cold, hostile, if not utterly unfriendly from the moment we walked in, as we could see unhappy customers from the offset - One person behind the bar on a glorious sunny day. No ‘Thank You’ goes to Ellice, as unfriendly, if not rude and abrupt.

I would like to make it very clear - That I DID NOT attempt to make any conversation with Ellice, as I was taken back by her attitude and manner of witnessing her talking to customers ahead of us in the queue. In fact there were many customers around us that made their presence known to this young lady, as her hostile attitude was acutely apparent to everyone! Maybe it was because she was the only one present in the bar serving at lunchtime on a warm day - Therefore had management set her up to fail if not frustrate her with no additional staff at a busy period of a day.

With what we witnessed, we went outside to order on an an App. Apps on tables outside only allow you to order crisps and nuts, drinks despite Ellice stating tersely it does show all the menus - We was not the only ones that could not get it working outside, as we asked another two tables of customers.

The countless rules state that you can only order food at precisely midday, not a second sooner.

My dogs are exceedingly well behaved in that they walk at our heels and sit by our sides - Another rule, which is not allowed, which we appreciate but there is a pleasant way of going about asking us to put our dogs on their leads, Frankly an unpleasant atmosphere, obnoxious if not rude staff member. Furthermore, a surmountable number of rules, which I could spend the next 10 minutes typing - Yet refuse to, as I will be speaking to HQ about our experience and how other customers were being treated.

Moreover, upon the food arriving - A side order of chips at roughly £4 equates to 10 chips in a small bowl that was placed on the main meal dish to make the lack lustre plate of Sticky Platter. Look appetising .The sticky platter consisted of 2 hard lamb balls on top of 2 dips, 6 fried prawns, 5 pieces of chewy overcooked chorizo, 2 mini wraps and two mushy chicken (we think) bites all for an additional £19.99. Please do not waste your money here, as there are more glorious pubs, cafes and restaurants in Hoddesdon that having amazing food and service.

On the plus side, the weather was stunning and the weir looked very pretty but that had nothing to do...

Disappointing experience at The Fish and Eels. Let me start by saying, the food was fabulous, so delicious and we throughly enjoyed it, but that was the only good experience we had. To start, the service was so slow. When we arrived, we waited to be seated, after nobody approached us, we asked the lady behind the bar with blonde hair did we seat ourselves. She replied “I’ll seat you in a minute”. However she took orders at the bar before seating us, taking way more than a minute. We wouldn’t have minded to wait if she had told us she was going to be a few minutes, I understand the service industry is fast paced sometimes, but she did not apologise for the wait or even say hello, just a plain follow me. We felt like we were inconveniencing her. We had a few minutes wait before ordering the food. I feel lucky that we arrived when we did as soon they had to turn away people as there was no capacity for food. After eating. We wanted to order desert. But we waiting nearly 10 minutes to have our plates cleared, another 10 minutes to ask for the bill, and another 10 minutes for the bill to be brought to the table. The other tables around us clearly had the same issues as they started to ask each other if they had ordered/been served yet. It was very clearly understaffed as a man behind the bar said he was supposed to go home at 5:30 and it was 6:40pm when the comment was made. My partner ordered a Guinness which we sat out by the water and drank, the Guinness tasted like it was from the bottom of the barrel unfortunately, and they did not drink it. It would have been a waste of time to get back in the huge bar line to get another. We didn’t bother with desert and left at this point due to the poor service. It would have been more efficiently managed if some of the food service was cornered off to efficiently service the customers there. I left feeling very disappointed with this service. From the reviews, it seems like this is a common occurrence too. I can’t see myself returning in the future which is a real shame as the food was lovely, but unfortunately time is money and you cannot expect customers to wait +20 minutes to be approached, without an apology or...