I’ll start by acknowledging that we booked a table at 10pm on a Monday (we had all been at an AGM prior, so all sober, this was not some drunken barrelling in situation), which is pushing it a bit, and on top of that we booked for 3 and ended up being 5. That being said, we booked the table online so if a late table was going to be a problem, then the bookings should have been closed.

Our experience was truly, beyond words, shockingly bad. It’s the next day and I remain in a little bit of a state of disbelief about how poor the service was, particularly given the number of staff working compared to the number of tables in the restaurant - there was really no excuse.

It was such a comedy of errors that I can’t outline every single problem, so here is a sample:

• I ordered a glass of Champagne with my starter from two different members of staff on 4 different occasions and it took 10 minutes to arrive. Yes, one single glass of champagne required that level of following up. What doesn’t help is that I got told it was on its way only to moments later see the waitress putting it thru because clearly the manager from whom I’d originally ordered hadn’t (y’all, I ran restaurants for 10 years, I know what’s going on)
• My cod was overcooked and so dry I could barely swallow it
• We ordered port with our cheese, got presented with a pudding wine saying there was no port in the fridge and this was the closest they could offer. Port doesn’t go in a fridge, one of our party could see it on the shelf quite clearly. How can you have staff not knowing the difference between Port and pudding wine?! Port is not a particularly fancy drink. Also by the way we ordered the port at the same time as the cheese and we had finished the cheese by the time they worked out apparently not having port. Again this is absolutely basic hospitality 101 and the staff were clearly clueless

In the end, we ordered separate drinks, which took another age (the bar service all up was absolutely appalling, and every time I looked over it seemed they either didn’t know what they were doing and/or moving at something resembling a glacial pace), and then the manager had the nerve to usher us out the door!

We would have been done and dusted had anyone in that restaurant managed to muster up something approaching decent service! To add either insult to injury or hilarity to stupidity depending on your point of view, I told the manager at least twice that the service wasn’t great, and still the bad service continued and THEY STILL INCLUDED SERVICE ON THE BILL!!!!

That’s what really tops it off for me, the complete lack of acknowledgment of how utterly useless they were being despite being told?! Not an apology, not an offer of coffee, not…improvement in the service?! It sort of blows your mind if you think about it.

All up, I’d say steer clear and go next door to Megan’s or down the street to Scott’s if you’re after dinner. Sod it, go over the road to Five Guys and you’d probably have a more enjoyable hospitality experience.

PS: had anybody made any effort to acknowledge what we were telling them and our generally obvious frustration, I probably wouldn’t have found myself posting this review but clearly the staff don’t listen to customers when they’re told directly.