The Elm Tree — Restaurant in London

DO NOT TRUST THIS VENUE!

Booked a 50th Birthday Party SEVEN MONTHS before the event, checked in with the manager repeatedly since then, including in person only the week before: “don’t worry, everything’s set up for you”.

On the afternoon of the day of the event, we heard from the DJ that he’d been told not to arrive until 9:30 on the night - essentially the manager had thoughtlessly gone ahead and advertised live rugby in the meantime and, when we called them, was “sorry” but could no longer honour our booking.

An astonishing and unparalleled level of incompetence - they clearly can’t be trusted with the basic management of running events - but also they are callously irresponsible to their customers: guests were coming from as far away as Scotland and my wife was devastated.

AVOID! AVOID! AVOID!

EDIT: The owner’s response is completely disingenuous - we specifically asked them if a sports event was likely to be screened, received the answer “no”, and checked several times when the DJ could start playing. Who in their right mind would book an area in a pub for a large birthday party when it is otherwise jam-packed full of rugby fans trying to watch and listen to a game?

Additionally, the “alternative venue” offered only three hours before our start time was in a completely different town for our guests to be redirected to. Also, it was The Ram: a nice enough pub, but one of the small, busiest, most chaotically bustling pubs on a Saturday night in Kingston - completely unsuitable for a very large birthday gathering.

It beggars belief that The Duke has tried to defend themselves here - they ought to simply apologise and reassure people that they won’t make such a mindless and upsetting...

I feel for these guys, because they're trying to make it different than what was here before.

It's taken a few months but the smell has finally gone from the last place. You used to walk in and were immediately hit with the breath of blokes and the smell of urine. It's now a clean pub, semi-inviting, albeit with a mismatched decor.

It still doesn't know what it wants to be. You come in and there's net curtains, I'm told "we want it to be somewhere women want to come" yet it's all Guinness branded, wood as far as the eye can see and sports on every TV. I presume this means they'd hoped they'd got rid of the previous clientele, but you can't choose your customers - I was in here a few weeks back and a guy was spewing under the table after a Megan's bottomless brunch. I don't think it's a gender issue, it's a people issue.

The Guinness pours great however, it's easily one of the best in the area in so far that it's not bad - I'm not a connoisseur, but clean glass, clean line, nice pint. I'm happy...

The food was mixed. I had the pub tapas, 3 starters for £15, that's Wetherspoons prices which are a nice sight to see. The skewers were lovely, the Squid was lovely, but the wings were some of the worst I've ever had.

Chewy, dry, and the bones were stained black. This is not good quality chicken, my jaw shouldn't hurt after eating them (sauce was good though), but switch to fresh - these are clearly cooked, frozen and reheated wings, makes me question the rest of the menu.

I'll come back, I like it, the staff are friendly, the pints are fine, the sport is good, but it's wide of the mark in terms of what it's trying to do.

Pick a lane and do it well. Missed...

I left The Duke of York quite underwhelmed after my recent visit. I dined there with some family and friends, and unfortunately, our experience left much to be desired.

The food we ordered was quite basic, and while I wasn't expecting anything overly fancy, what we received was disappointingly lackluster. The food was served to us at a notably cold temperature, and the portion sizes were on the smaller side. We had to send our food back once, and when it returned, it was on a hot plate, but it was still far from the right temperature. Adding to the frustration, we had ordered steaks, and the waitress informed us that they might not be medium-rare anymore due to the reheating process, which was surprising. Reheating food in such a manner is not something I would expect from a restaurant or pub. Eventually, we received a completely new set of meals, which were indeed hot, but by that point, our appetite had waned considerably.

What compounded our disappointment was the subpar service we received from various staff members, and there was a noticeable absence of apologies. While the manager attempted to make amends by offering two complimentary drinks, it would have been more appropriate to extend this gesture to the entire group or to remove the cost of the cold food from the bill.

Having explored several dining options in Surbiton, I must say that there are other establishments in the area that provide a more satisfying dining experience than what we experienced at The...