The Fat Badger — Restaurant in Great Britain

My partner and I went to The Fat Badger for our four years Anniversary meal. We came all the way from Leeds, so we were very excited to go in and get some tasty food as we have heard some wonderful things about the restaurant.

My partner and I were immediately seated and we were immediately very impressed with the service provided by the highly attentive members of the staff. They brought us the sunday roast menu, drinks menu etc. with a bottle of water (harrogate water wink wink!)

We decided to go for a bottle of Cabernet Franc, ‘Le Tristan’, Gilbert Chon as it is a light bodied red well paired with meat. It was yum! I could drink two bottles of that without wincing.

For appetisers, my partner order the Goats cheese salad with Beetroot and pine nuts. The cheese was perfectly seared which was so tender and tasty and the salad was so refreshing, came with some chunks of beetroot (which we couldn’t fault one bit, we LOVE beetroot in salad!)

I ordered the Salmon fishcake with salad and house tartar sauce. The salad and the tartar sauce was yum, but the fishcake had potential to be better. It was a bit lumpy (felt like it couldve been store bought?)

We jumped into our mains right after. The food was soooo well presented, the member of the staff who brought it in looked so proud of the Yorkshire puddings, I cannot blame him. They were huge!

My partner ordered the Roast rump cap of beef and I ordered the Roast loin of pork with stuffing.

Both came with the said huge yorkshire pudding, seasonal vegetables, roast potatoes in duck fat, creamy mash & gravy and we ordered the extra cauliflower cheese!

Now the beef roast was soooo good, tender, medium rare, absolutely banging. I will go back for that! My pork loin was average but the crackling was very good even better the bits that were soaked in gravy.

The seasonal veggies were perfect! Al dente, star of the show were the savoy cabbage, going to make some for myself this sunday! 😋

There were two problems!

The quantity of gravy. So little, I was gagging cuz of the lack of gravy, it would’ve been amazing if they offered a pot of gravy to pour over the Yorkshires. It was such a shame because the Yorkshires seemed dry without any filled inside it. We all know a roast is THE roast with excess gravy. Knowing lots of gravy can ruin the presentation (which is absolutely agreeable), roast is meant to also be homely (no problem if one goes ahead and ruins the look of everything on the plate with gravy because that would make one salivate immediately, ykwim?) Not something that cannot be fixed so I was not complaining ☺️

My partner and I were very disappointed with the quality of the roast potatoes. We were expecting cripsy on the outside and fluffy on the inside potatoes, but the potatoes smelt stale, felt hard and were so dry. We both had to put them away. Such a shame because potatoes roasted in duck fat are sooooo gorgeous!

Overall, we would DEFINITELY go back soon. We are going to try something else on the menu for sure. Hopefully our next time...

Nice decor, good selection of drinks including real ales. Food nice BUT WARNING service absolutely appalling. No one came to take a drinks order, no one came to take a food order. We had to ask three times for water to be brought to the table. After waiting an age for our main course and seeing other customers who had arrived and ordered almost half an hour after us get theirs we were told that the chef had mislaid our order. When it did arrive a specific request for extra mayo on the side had been ignored/ forgotten. On paying the bill I explained that the food had been nice but the service appalling and that was the reason I wasn't leaving a tip. This was at 21.05 hrs at 21.09 hrs I got an email from open table, who I had made the reservation with saying that I had failed to attend and had cancelled my booking. If I had any queries about this to raise them with the establishment itself. When I mentioned this to the waiter I was told not to worry it was probably a, "systems issue". I said systems only work on the information that is inputted into them and asked to see the manager. On discussing it with him he said that he or one of his staff may have 'accidentally' hit the customer cancelled button by mistake. This of course prevented me from being invited to submit a review on the open table website. A coincidence or deliberate ploy on the part of the restaurant to try and thwart an honest review from being posted, I will let you be the judge of that. In summary a nice location, good bar menu, nice food but don't go if you are hungry or thirsty as the service is appalling. As for the ethics of inputting false information about cancelling a booking that has just been fulfilled and paid for, let's just say it leaves a very unpleasant taste...

Visited The Fat Badger on Saturday 2nd March 2019. During the evening we endured a rowdy group who were so loud it was impossible to hear one another. We asked to move but were told it was not possible,. Other tables nearby also had to put up with this including the foul language not expected in an establishment like this. At the end of the evening I paid the bill and told the Duty Manager I was not happy and he merely said 'sorry'. This was a double Birthday celebration including a 40th which was ruined. The lack of address of this issue was disappointing and surprising for an establishment which holds itself in such high regard. I asked for another Manager to call me on the Monday as I did not wish to speak to the Restaurant Manager further about this - no call received. There was however a rather petulant and churlish response from 'Clarkey', whose unprofessional and blatant fabrication indicates (along with the other Manager) a position of authority obtained by default. I did not ask for a discount as full payment was made,. There was absolutely no attempt by any member of staff to ask them to keep the noise down for other diners, only one waiter requesting this as they were too loud for him to take an order from a nearby table . I dIid not 'insist' that we be moved, I asked if we could be. And further more the reference made to my allegedly threatening them with a bad review is a complete lie. The sarcastic, childish response from Clarkey implies that he is unable to handle a customer complaint and the very fact that he replied without the knowledge of having been present,that evening gives further weight to this. His response to other complaints on Trip Advisor are consistent with this -...