Miller & Carter Otterspool — Restaurant in Liverpool

Such a shame. Not one for complaining or leaving bad reviews, especially when I'm fully aware how difficult the food industry can be. But having read other reviews we seem to have had a similar experience to a number of other customers, so would appear that lessons have not been learnt!? Turned up as a group of 7, 4 adults and 3 children. We have a 9 month old baby and we needed some boiling water for his bottle as we'd been for a walk prior to our meal. The girl serving on the bar did not approach the request at all well. Her response "we shouldn't do it, but we will"?? Pretty abruptly. Having been to a lot of various restaurants, cafes, bars over the years with young babies and needing boiling water whilst out we have never had any issue anywhere else?? We then sat down and ordered. Starters came out fairly quickly and no issues with anyone's. But then we got to mains and the whole experience fell apart. Firstly 2 of our group ordered a roast and we're told at the point of order that there were no Yorkshire puddings. Now I'm no chef, but whipping up a Yorkshire pudding is not difficult at all having done it myself numerous times. I ordered a cheese and bacon burger and my wife a steak. 30 mins of waiting and a slab of lettuce was put on the table?? Turns out it was to accompany my wife's steak, so we thought mains should be with us soon. Nope! Our 9 month old son was getting pretty restless as the wait started to get a bit silly, so I started pacing up and down the restaurant and seen a plate on the pass with a burger and chips. The same plate was left under lamps for a good 25-30mins. I jokingly returned to our table and mentioned to my wife that the burger that had been sat unserved on the pass is probably mine. I shouldn't have joked!! Mains started to arrive at the table 30 mins after the mystery lettuce had been plonked on the table and the lonely burger that had been put on the pass 30 mins earlier waiting for everyone else's meal to be prepared was put in front of myself. No exaggeration when I say the hottest thing on the plate was the coleslaw that had been sat under a lamp for 30mins. Burger incredibly dry and cold and chips luke warm. No surprise considering it had been waiting to enter my mouth under a lamp for an eternity. My wife's steak was not cooked to request and was again warm at best. The butter sat on top of the steak remained unmelted which says alot. Our friends who ordered the roast minus the Yorkshire puds had cold veg and were left pretty underwhelmed by everything else. Now, prior to visiting the pub/restaurant today which out friends had booked I jokingly made ref to the clothing policy of smart casual, with it being Sunday I would have liked a more relaxed affair where I can turn up looking like a slob in my joggers and hoody, but so be it. But with that sort of policy and how the place is being pitched you would expect something of much better quality? I have never left a restaurant/pub/cafe without having a meal, today was a first. The prices charged and the way M&C portray the fine dining experience with dress codes unfortunately does not match the actual quality of food and...

If I could give no stars I would. I went with my partner for Christmas day for the fourth year running . Everything was a disaster which was in complete contrast to previous Christmas days. Canapies were rock hard and miniscule. Starters were supposed to be prawns in garlic butter sauce. The prawns were tough as old boots and we got no garlic butter sauce. As for the mains I don't know where to start . It was absolutely horrendous. Vegetables were cold and rock hard . Gravy was cold and watery. The roasties were cold and obviously frozen not fresh.. If I had known I could have bought our own from Iceland and saved myself a lot of money. Several items were missing. The Christmas day menu stated cauliflower cheese but we got none. The menu stated pigs in blankets but we got none. The menu also stated stuffing wrapped in bacon of which we got none . We overheard the waitresses discussing all these items that they had not got. The really bad part is that we were not told that about all these missing items that were on our Christmas day menu but not on our plates. The missing items had not been substituted either . The whole idea of pre ordering and prepaying means that the manager should know how many of each item is required. Not having 3 of the mains dish ingredients as previously stated on the menu is unforgiveable. Deserts were average. We waited 45 minutes between the starters and the main course . Drinks were slow to come too and when we asked what the problem was the waitress said there was only 2 people on the bar when normally on Christmas day there should be 4 on the bar. By the time my partners soft drinks arrived the ice cubes had melted. My partner also ordered Irish coffee. This was also unsatisfactory. We asked the waitress to ask the manager to come to our table which he did not do. On leaving we tried to see him. There was a number of people waiting to be seated but nobody was serving them. We got the impression that the manager was trying to avoid us. Eventually we left very unhappy and extremely disappointed because this miller and carter branch ruined our expensive Xmas day meal . One final thing . I went to the toilet when I was there. The was only one cubicle with pee all over the seat and floor and the latch on the door was missing so it could not be locked. What has happened to miller and carter's standards. This branch was shameful and the blame must rest squarely with the manager. This matter is now in the hands of head office and the upper management. We should be given a full refund of our £200 bill AND compensated for having our Christmas day meal ruined. So should all the other people who have been cheated and short changed by this deciptful act. This matter is far from over and I will come back here with an update once head office has addressed the issue. More to follow. In the meantime my advice is to avoid this badly managed branch of miller and...

EDIT in response to reply: I appreciate the effort to take action on my review, so I will move it to a 3 star from one. However I would like to be clear that I said we didn't get a read back at all, it's not like we sat quiet when given the wrong read back. As for the desert we ordered we got that one to make up for the fact we had spent 10 pound on a quarter of a lettuce which I'm glad to hear you clean properly.

Was recommended this place by a friend only to be left bitterly disappointed by the food on offer. It's basically a harvester that thinks it's better than harvester. I came here for a slightly more expensive dining experience so the prices were as expected however with a higher price I expect a higher value. This was not the case. Our waitress made the honest mistake of hearing our order wrong, and when asked if our meal was okay we said it was only to discover a member of our group had stayed quiet and had infact been served the wrong thing - this was our fault. And respect to that waitress for bringing it to the managers attention who offered us a free dessert presumably in the hopes that it would distract from the honest mistake, which could of been avoided if A. The waitress read back our order to us before sending it to the kitchen B. We had identified that it was actually not the meal we ordered (they were similar it's not like we were served soup instead of steak were not stupid). The meal that did arrive was a hake salad, I'll pop a picture onto this review so you can see it. I have no idea how this lettuce was washed all the way through and it can be guaranteed to be clean but I assume the food hygiene rating takes that into account? However for 11 pound (not including the fish) you get a quarter of a lettuce, like straight up we joked about saving it for our tortoise but instead decided not to when we realised we couldn't verify how clean it was, we genuinely put more effort into our pets salad then they did ours. Which is why I'm leaving this review free desert aside I just was bitterly disappointed and although I appreciate the efforts by the manager. I don't think I should leave a gleaming 5 star review that could lead people into eating here when there are plenty of alternative places to eat at this price point with a far...