Malta Inn Beefeater — Restaurant in Maidstone

I am not surprised that they have gone down now with 3.6 stars. What a shame? It used to be my favourite place for steaks, burgers, and beer. Not any more! Absolute disaster!

Shame on you, Beefeater Team!!!

Went there last Sunday, ordered the best burger they serve, and received a cold shoe sole. I have informed the waiter who, without sorry, just took the plate and said he is going to bring me the fresh one. Really? If that one was fresh, then I am King Charles III. Bet it was prepared the day before and now just heated up, as it was warm this time but still no juice at all, very dry, chewy, another sole, not edible. I am very disappointed with the quality of the food and customer services. You gonna get much better quality from the van by B&Q. I am not even going to mention kids' food. Nobody came to ask us if everything is OK, what they used to do before regularly. You have to queue up for ordering from the bar. Staff can't get through as you are standing in the queue, so unorganised place, just chaos and couldn't find happy customer, everyone annoyed. Why can't they have the online ordering? It is so simple, and it works in so many other restaurants (where they care about the customer). After queuing up, they told me I couldn't order from this menu for the offer I received by email, even if it states on email that only T-bone is excluded. So I have received a different menu, and I had to go back to the family to ask what they want from this menu and then queue up again. And then waiting for bloody long time to be served but nothing mentioned whilst ordering. Tables sticky, untidy. Whole area messy. Are they for real?

Shame on you, Beefeater Team!!!

Who is running this restaurant? Some builders and painters or carpenters are cooking, and as waiters, you have road work contractors? The only last positive thing that remains is a nice location by the river.

Shame on you, Beefeater team!!!

Next time, I would rather have a pizza at Kent Life and save a lot of money, and keep myself calm as they serve much better food even for their animals than you serving to your customers.

Shame on you, Beefeater Team!!!

As I mentioned above, you used to be my favourite place, which I recommend it to everyone, and I used to take all my visitors and friends to your place for fantastic food and hospitality. How did you manage to bring that place from the top to the bottom in a few years' time? And please do not use covid as excuses as there are so many other restaurants and they keep their quality no matter what!

Shame on you, Beefeater Team!!!

I do understand that in current economic climate portions getting smaller and I won't see onion rings included in price for a burger and patty will be as thin so I can nearly see through to be able to keep prices down and compete. But come on, the quality of the food and customer services must stay on top of everything. Otherwise, you can close the business.

Shame on you, Beefeater Team!!!

Bye-bye, never ever, until I see your stars getting closer to 5 again.

Shame on you,...

Absolutely awful experience.

Albeit this is a Beefeater, but regardless, we had a shocking time, food was tasteless and burnt, and were met with the most dismissive and careless staff.

To start off, we were seated on a dirty table that hadn't been wiped. Then our waitress took our order and tried to upsell me a beer when I never asked for it. Our starters came out cold, and my potato wedges were burnt to a blackened crisp. It gets better...

When taking our orders I said very clearly to our server that I wanted the VEGAN burger. After waiting half an hour for food to come out, I bit into it and immediately realised this was a beef burger. We informed the lady, and she said she would check with the kitchen - I really have no idea why she needed to do that when it was very clearly meat. Once she came back she said 'oh sorry are you vegan?' to which I just laughed. And then explained to me 'we've never had that happen before, chef said he got it mixed up because the kitchen is busy' which is such a poor excuse. I didn't make a song and dance about it but I asked if she could re-order it for me. It came out and it was a slobbishly put together burger with stuff missing. Anyway, happily ate it. When we asked for the bill I issued that I was very disappointed with the mishap and the service and that I would like a full or partial refund. The waitress said 'what do you mean?' as if I was speaking double Dutch. I said 'well I was very clear in my order and I don't think it's fair to pay the full price'. She said she would speak to the kitchen and see what they could do, again, a total bag of lies because why would this need to be discussed with the kitchen staff?! And also it took her all of 20 seconds to come back. She then said 'chef has said that we'll take it off the bill' which I was fine with, but not once did I see her go to the kitchen for this. She clearly couldn't admit her mistake. My friend stepped in as she felt the waitress had no regard for how serious this was, and explained that luckily I have no intolerance or allergy but regardless it should be delt with exactly the same, as you can't assume. And the waitress stood there completely dismissing everything she said. She chirped up and said that one time she'd served an alcoholic version of a mocktail to a customer by mistake one time, which is completely irrelevant, but again admitting that these things just slide in this establishment and they don't see the severity. Once paid, she gave us the receipt and asked if we could leave a review...not sure if this was sarcasm, but as she requested,...

I want to start by saying that although this is a negative review, the manager was apologetic and never charged us for our meal and drinks.

Booking: very easy to do online. Lots of options for timings, etc. I chose a 7pm dinner slot as I was meeting up with friends I had not seen for nearly a year. The Malta was central to where we all lived and an ideal location just off of the M20.

Menu: All items were available. Lots to choose from. A nice varied menu for food and drinks. We were given time to look over the menu. However we had to ask to order our food as the wait was too long.

Starters: I had the mushrooms. These were crispy and golden on the outside as they were in breadcrumbs. However, the mushrooms inside were still frozen and obviously stone cold no wait staff nearby, so I walked through the restaurant till I found someone to tell them. They were shocked when they felt it. I asked for them to be taken off of the bill - no option for replacement was offered.

After my friends had finished their starter's haloumi fries, we again had a long wait. Plates were cleared, we sat waiting and had to ask where our food was. Drinks were also delayed in coming out - we had to ask for those, too. The sweetcorn my friend asked for instead of peas failed to come with her meal. My meal had sweetcorn on, we were astounded that hers did not arrive with her meal. The waitress said she would get it. When it came out, it was cold. There was also hair on the dinner plate. When we complained, the waitress made it feel like she did us a favour by taking the mushrooms off the bill. All meals were returned as the hair was the last straw for us.

Service: All in all, shocking. We chose to come here instead of the harvester, which is down the road or to any other restaurant nearby. We will not be returning here as we feel it tarnished what we hoped to be a relaxing evening catching up with friends.

As mentioned at the start of this review, the manager first said she won't charge us for any of the meals and then apologised again and said she would not charge us for our...