The Ardleigh — Restaurant in London

Where to begin….

We met up with a friend and their children at a close by fun place and wanted to grab some food after and simply googled a local pub that provided food as well.

As I we were travelling in 3 cars we arrived separately 5 minutes apart. I arrived first with 3 young boys and when I stated there would be 5 others coming you’d have thought I had asked the lady to perform heart surgery.

She proceeded to find me a couple of tables which said reserved and made sure I knew they were reserved from 2 o’clock. As it was 12.30 I thought I could make this work so took it. Before she left she ‘warned’ me the children couldn’t go into the grounds without an adult there which I bowed to.

My other guests arrived with 2 young boys g children and we sat down. No offer of high chairs must I add so we collected them ourselves, so far so good?

As you get in a lot of places you place the order yourselves and wait for the magic with the offer of tipping for no evidence of food quality or service so far. 0% it is.

A young waitress then brought our drinks whilst dropping my wife’s drink over her, apologised and ran off. The original militant lady then provided a replacement and an explanation that the girl was new and no real sentiment of an apology which we laughed off and cleaned my wife’s jacket. I then had to seek out my drink which she took away whilst flapping and collect it from a corner she had misplaced it in.

Now the really disappointing part of this doesn’t appear exhilarating enough so far, the food. 30 minutes later and just remember the clock is ticking until we need to vacate the only reserved table in the premises, the food finally comes out.

4 childrens meals ranging from pizza and chips, sliders and a curry arrived along with 2 roasts and a salad. Kids ate theirs as they are children and what child doesn’t eat pizza and chips etc.

The roasts were between £15 and £18 and wow I’m not sure I’d really call it food. Carrots- hard, potatoes bland, meat was almost on your arse broke boiled tasteless rubbish, red cabage and sprouts had no seasoning and 50% of my meal was left as was the other roast. Salad I believe was half eaten.

As we were aware of the time limit which ended up being late arriving we asked if we could eat pudding in the outside area which was very spacious and had 0 people in it the whole time we were there (2 1/2 hours) and after seeming like we had asked what the square root of 16 million was we were again allowed to proceed.

We ate outside and exchanged Xmas presents which was the point of the meet up and the sergeant major got one last instruction in which was for the boys not to play with the ball which was just presented as a gift. By this time I simply had nothing to say.

To summarise.

NICE BUILDING AND DECOR TERRIBLE PUB TERRIBLE FOOD- chef needs a lesson or two in flavour as they simply don’t know how to cook. TERRIBLE TERRIBLE SERVICE- ALL the women working here are definitely better suited to being dinner ladies you didn’t like at school. As for asking for a tip- change careers there’s my...

I’m really disappointed with my experience at The Ardleigh on 5th October 2025, especially as it was meant to be my birthday meal.

There were 13 of us in the group, and because of the size of the booking, I was asked to pre-order our mains in advance, which I did by email on 19th September — well ahead of time. I even called to confirm that the restaurant had received the order.

However, when we arrived, things started to go wrong straight away. When ordering our starters at the bar, one item (calamari) was unavailable. We also asked to open a tab to make it easier to split the bill later, but the waitress accidentally charged my card in full instead. We then had to wait while this was refunded and the tab was set up again.

Shortly after, another staff member asked if we wanted to order our mains — even though we had already pre-ordered. They claimed to have no record of the email. By this point, we had already been there nearly 50 minutes, meaning our mains hadn’t even been started. When they finally found the email, I was told that the pork belly roast wasn’t available, which could easily have been communicated earlier if the order had been checked in advance. I swapped to chicken breast.

Then another staff member came over to say there were only 11 meals on the order instead of 13, so that had to be corrected too.

When the food eventually arrived, it came out in batches — there was almost a 10-minute gap between the first and last meals. Half the table had finished eating before the others were even served.

Unfortunately, the food itself was very poor quality. The roast potatoes were rock solid, the chicken was dry and tough, and everything was cold. Several of us barely ate half of our meals.

When we mentioned this to a waitress, she offered a free drink each, but when we said that wasn’t really enough considering the experience, she shrugged and walked off. Later, the manager offered another round of drinks and a small discount on the bill, but by then we all just wanted to leave.

Overall, this was a really disappointing experience — especially for a special occasion. I’ve eaten here before and had a lovely time, but this visit was completely disorganised, poorly managed, and the food was not up to standard. The lack of communication between staff and the poor service ruined what should have been a nice birthday meal.

I really hope the management takes this feedback seriously, because the evening left all of us feeling frustrated, hungry,...

UPDATED ...... Very disappointed and feeling like we were conned.....visited in March at invitation of a friend. Arrived, boughts drinks and food and left after just over 2 hours.

A couple of weeks later we received a 'fine' for parking in their car park. At no point did we see a sign (it was dark and raining and frankly, who looks for parking restrictions in a pub car park anyway !!!!!). Staff didn't suggest that we should input any reg number if we'd driven and when we called to question the fine - the staff member said 'we should learn to read, there are signs everywhere'....lovely way to treat an unsuspecting customer.

Needless to say I won't be visiting any Ember Inn ever again and if you do - make sure you check that they are not going to ambush you afterwards with parking fine for taking the trouble to pay them a visit !!

UPDATE - having received a 'Final Notice' from Euro Car Parks yesterday I had another go at complaining to Ember Inns. I received a call 10 minutes later from the Manageress at the Ardleigh (Lisa) and received an unreserved apology. The parking notice has also been cancelled.

On that basis, although not ideal, I am happy that the issue with the parking was resolved and am happy - particularly with Lisa who dealt with the issue promptly and in the manner it should have been dealt with in the...