55 Wade Street — Restaurant in Lichfield

Avoid, avoid, avoid. I’ll start by saying I don’t often write reviews but in this case I feel that it is absolutely necessary . We attempted to visit 55 Wade Street on a Thursday night for a date after seeing that it was both highly rated and recommended. We arrived to find the place pretty much empty at around 8:30 pm. There was one guy working behind the bar who we approached and asked if we could have a table. This seemed to surprise him, and he then proceeded to tell us that they had been ‘so busy’ that day that they had ‘run out of food’ and that the head Chef had made the call to ‘close the kitchen.’ Judging by the lack of people in the place, the fact the weather had been miserable all day and it being a Thursday... I found this story very hard to believe. Slightly disappointed, we then asked if we could just have a drink instead whilst we figured out where else we can eat. The Barman gave us a menu and we set about choosing our drinks, thankful at least that it was 2 for 1 cocktails that evening. Whilst we were choosing, the Barman confessed (we didn’t even ask) that he didn’t actually know how to make the majority of the cocktails on there, as ‘they hadn’t taught him,’ but that he would give them a try... He seemed to be looking for advice also from the one other person at the Bar, who was sat lounging on his phone with his feet up in the corner and may also have worked at 55 Wade Street. In the end I ordered an Old Fashioned and she ordered a gin based cocktail and we were told to be seated and he’d bring it over. When the drinks arrived, I can honestly say I have never tasted a worse Old Fashioned. Firstly, the sugar was floating in the drink still - for which the Barman gave me a straw to ‘try and stir it in’, the ice was your big standard ice pack ice that melted immediately and there was no garnishing at all. Her cocktail (I forget the name) was equally bad, as it should have been over crushed ice (not a couple of cubes of bog standard ice) and it should have been in some kind of nice glass with some garnishing (it was just in a half pint glass). It also, like the Old Fashioned, tasted terrible. We ended up leaving our drinks and heading in search of somewhere else. I’ll finish by saying I honestly cannot understand why this place has so many good reviews given our experience. My only guess is that a lot of these reviews are either fake or written by ‘friends’ of the establishment. I would avoid this place...

We visited for my dad’s birthday and unfortunately the experience felt quite rushed from the start. When we arrived, staff weren’t sure which menu we had booked (normal or bottomless), so we were sat at the very back of the restaurant on sticky tables. We asked to move to the front, as we thought it would get a bit noisy with the bottomless groups, and while the manager did let us move, we were told we’d only have 1.5 hours before the next booking. The new table was much nicer though.

We ordered drinks and were told all food courses had to be ordered at once, which felt a little pressured. The food and drinks did come out quickly and were of a good standard. However, one member of our group asked to swap sweet potato fries for normal fries, which was agreed to, but the dish still arrived with sweet potato fries. After raising it, the plate was eventually swapped.

Another disappointment was when our main meals arrived — the waitress told us that if we wanted more drinks, it would no longer be table service and we’d have to go up to the bar, as they had large groups coming in for bottomless sessions. This really isn’t what you expect at a restaurant, and it left some of us with empty glasses during the meal as we didn’t want to leave the table mid-course to go up and wait at the bar.

The waitresses seemed a bit rushed off their feet, even though the restaurant wasn’t that busy, and that made the whole service feel a little impersonal. Overall, for a birthday meal it didn’t feel particularly relaxed or special, more like the focus was on turning tables quickly.

We probably wouldn’t return for a family meal, but it seems better suited to a lively bottomless session...

First of all, the two front of house staff were really brilliant and my bad review should not reflect on them in any way at all. The food here was truly awful and very over-priced indeed. Because this place is located opposite Lichfield’s only theatre, this bar / restaurant enjoys a captive audience many nights of the week. We were having a drink and a bite before going to see a show which was starting at 7.30pm. We ordered simple food at 6.20pm; 2 x chicken and smoked bacon penne (£12.95 each), and 1 x smoked tomato soup with croutons (£4.95), we also ordered some bread to go with the soup (extra £1). The bar and restaurant was around 25% occupied so it wasn’t busy at all. Food arrived just after 6.50pm. Pasta was cold, there was no chicken at all in it - not even a tiny shred, nothing, and the ‘smoked bacon’ was of the freeze-dried variety shaken out of a plastic tub, that’s what I’m guessing anyway, just tiny little hard red specks of bacon flavoured something or other. The soup came without croutons and tasted like tomato purée thinned down with tomato juice, and a sachet of chemical smoke flavour added to it. Under normal circumstances we would certainly have sent all of it back and gone elsewhere to eat. But we couldn’t as we didn’t have enough time before the show started, and I’m guessing that this restaurant, because of it’s location, has become very complacent and lazy owing to it’s stream of theatre customers. I would think that they don’t have many, if any, patrons returning for food. All in all, an expensive disappointment. But I do want to make the point that the bar and waiting staff were really fantastic, probably too good for this...