The Sutherland — Restaurant in Great Britain

I visited this lovely place with a friend on Saturday that I don’t get to see very often but have known over 25 years! I couldn’t understand why she was so enthusiastic and began to get a bit worried it may surprise for me 😬 luckily it was that it is such a good restaurant and wanted me to experience it! The hotel entrance was clean and gardens immaculate and we entered through the bar and were promptly acknowledged by the bar staff and we let them know we had a dinner reservation. Gracefully we were guided to our seats in the beautifully renovated restaurant, with tasteful and interesting decors and a view, through brittle style floor to ceiling windows and doors over looking the modern ponds (with beautiful fish in) onto the well manicured gardens. We ordered some cocktails (even one that wasn’t on the list) and were made to feel comfortable and relaxed. We had a good laugh and perused the menu which was full of interesting and exciting options. My choices were chicken lollipops and followed by a favourite of mine Beef Bourguignon which came with puréed mash and veg! After drinks arrived and we carried on catching up we ordered wine and food. In a perfectly unobtrusive way, we were politely checked in on and everything we asked for was listened to and delivered. The seats we were at were quite warm and they offered to open the door should the people near the door not object .. never made to feel uncomfortable in fact the opposite the were genuinely wanted to make sure we had the best experience! I’d like to say that our main waitress Evee was amazing, and we made sure she knew how amazing our evening was! Food was fantastic, cocktails and atmosphere are exceptional and as you see from other reviews I’ve been to some very special places so was thrilled to have an amazing experience locally to my really good friend! We met the manager and he spent time with us (at our request) thanking him and congratulating him on his team! I had to shut up as I was so enthusiastic which on top of wine and cocktails, we expressed our thanks and left! Well done I hope to return soon and pray that it maintains this amazing experience which doesn’t happen often in...

As big foodies and love eating out we unfortunately have very mixed feelings after our first visit. The building... Aesthetically it looks beautiful, from the beautiful entrance to the decor, we was very impressed. In the summer the outside will be amazing with carp in the water leading onto a lovely garden. We had a table booked for 3 at 6.30, when we entered the front door, there was nowhere to stand whilst waiting to be greeted to show us to out seats we was left hanging in the door way getting in everyone's way, very uncomfortable experience. The atmosphere and staff... We finally got showed to our seats, it was very noisy, we couldn't hold a conversation unless we shouted. There was alot of staff, almost rushing around, it felt chaotic. It was busy but when paying £200, I would of wanted a more relaxed vibe, our waitress didn't introduce herself, we wasn't sure who our waiter/waitress was. On ordering drinks for each course, we wasn't receiving them until we had almost finished eating. Food... The cocktail we started with was delicious, we had 2 cherry daiquiris and a mai tai, absolutely beautiful, if the experience wasn't disappointing we would have stayed for another one. To start I ordered salt and pepper squid, it was very chewy, not the best. My wife had the aranchini balls, which were absolutely delicious, really impressed. Our friend had Thai cakes which were delicious too. For mains our friend had the pie of the day, very nice apart from the pastry was overcooked which made it too hard. Myself and my wife had the ribeye steak medium rare. It was more medium, and extremely chewy, I couldn't eat mine, I ordered red wine jus and it was more like onion gravy? However I had upgraded to the dauphinoise potatoes which were possibly the best dauphinoise I have ever tasted. We were a bit perplexed as to why we only received half a mushroom each with our steak too.

Overall, we were disapointed, we will try again and try the lunch time menu, but I'm not in a rush to go back or to recommend right now. I wish this review could have been...

Went here as 2 couples on a Friday night. It was nice to see the place busy, but not uncomfortably so.|The decore and atmosphere are excellent, and it is the kind of place you would go back to again and again. The price is ok, not cheap, but then for a special place to eat out, you don't mind that. The price of a beer is very decent. The service is friendly and welcoming.|We had been in for a drink twice before and all looked very positive, and we enjoyed our drink visit, so decided to go with friends.|We did not have a starter, so went straight for mains. We ordered drinks, my wife had a Singapore sling which was a very strange bland colour, it seemed to lack that sling taste and certainly had no grenadine in it to provide the traditional colour. But hey, lets move on.|For mains we had 2 crispy beef salads, 1 gammon and 1 Chicken with red wine.|Our friend said the crispy beef salad was the worse she had ever had, and my wife said the beefy was chewy and lacked any taste or depth. The other 2 mains were ok, but really just ok. Not the sort of meal that you would be wanting to rush back to.|We also had chunky chips, and they were awful, more strawny chips than chunky.|We were so disappointed we did complain, the staff and service were very polite and accommodating, and to be fair offered the crispy beef to be taken off the meal or we could have 4 desserts on the house, we chose the later because we were still hungry. So after sales was excellent.|3 of the puddings were absolutely fine, but I could not recommend the lemon meringue, quite bland, not lemony and no crunch to the meringue.|Overall we came with high expectations, and very much wanting a good night out. but we ended up so disappointed with the food, and in contrast very pleased with how the staff/manager managed our situation. So quite a mixed view. But in the end we went out for a nice meal, and we will go back again when other reviews are consistently of a high food standard. After all we may have just hit...