Embers & Ice - Fareham — Restaurant in Fareham

Booked a table online on the day for 21/07, online they had availability for the whole evening. First time at the restaurant, had to queue at the bar to find out where our table was, got seated upstairs. Staff did not explain how ordering worked, had to go and ask. We were a table of 8, so can understand we were a big group, but waited over 30 minutes each time for drinks orders. Ordered food and was told it would be an hour wait. Waited an hour and 20 minutes, no staff came and checked on our table. Member of the party went to find out about food and was told it was just being plated by the manager. Then still had to wait another 10/15 minutes until food arrived. The food was brought out, I believe by the manager, he apologised for the wait but stated “everyone’s had to wait the same amount of time” like it was our problem. The meals had so many mistakes… two meals with the wrong fries and mushy peas that were all dried out you could tell they had just been sat there for ages. A sharer where the garlic bread was so burnt and hard. A burger that was asked to be plain came with all the salad and sauce. Steak without the sauce or steak knife. The manager said “oh I don’t know what’s wrong with the chefs, I’ll have a word and correct everything” the burger meal was re cooked, which took a while. He replaced the garlic bread and gave us 2 bowls of extra fries to replace the wrong fries given for the two meals. By the time he brought the steak knife and sauce to us the steak had already been eaten as it would have been cold otherwise. The manager apologised again and said they had some large unexpected bookings which they weren’t expecting and this is why everything took so long. I walked around the restaurant and took photos because there was only a handful of tables sat eating so was confused as to why he said this and why there was such a long wait for the food. If they did not have enough staff then there shouldn’t have been so many available bookings online. This was suppose to be an evening of celebration for my university graduation, instead it was ruined by the long waits, poor communication and rubbish food. The worst dining experience and will definitely not...

Very disappointed with how I was spoken to last night by the 'gentleman' with the long hair. We had purchased our first round of drinks and sat at a vacant table, only to be told we had to return one of the chairs as it was taken from a booked table. I am not sure what was so special about this chair (that one of our party was sat on), compared to the 25+ empty chairs that were in the vicinity. On finding another chair for my friend to sit on, I was told off like a child for my attitude in this situation. Within 2 minutes of this happening, the table we were sat on was suddenly reserved and a little sign put on our table. This is no way to run a business - if the table is occupied (we were a party of 6 and already spent £60+ on our first round) you shouldn't be telling people they need to move in 30 minutes. The venue was practically empty!

Maybe if your paying customers were treated with a bit of respect and dignity, the venue would have a lot more customers. I am nearly 40 years old, spent 4 years training in hospitality management and worked in the industry for over 10 years. Treating customers well is a fundamental basic and I have never been spoken to like this before by a...

My friend booked the bottomless brunch for her birthday and I have to say from start to finish it was terrible. I usually go to the slug and lettuce in Gunwharf and always get great service, food and drinks. To cut a long story short: It took us around 30 minutes to just get our first order taken, we only ended up having 5 drinks the entire time due to the waiting time for drinks to arrive, when our drinks did arrive twice they had forgot some of our drink orders so some people on our table had to wait even longer for their drinks, my food order came out incorrect, we then had to wait for around 30minutes for our bill which they ended up emailing to us anyway so that was a complete waste of time. To top everything off, I had food poisoning all day Sunday and felt rough yesterday from the food. I know it was the food because I hadn't eaten before or after the Slug and Lettuce when I started getting severe stomach pain and sickness. I don’t know if they were just understaffed that day or what was going on but the experience definitely was not worth the money. The lady and young lad serving were lovely but you could see they were swept...