Oak on the Green — Restaurant in Maidstone

My Husband wrote this review as it was his birthday.

My family wanted to do something a bit special for my 60th birthday and this restaurant had come very highly recommended to my Eldest son who lives locally.

Initially the reception was very good, orders for starters taken and drinks brought by a very pleasant member of waiting staff. The starters were very good indeed, Scallops, House Soup and Korean Tortillas were excellent. Things started to go awry with the mains…..the wait for them was a good bit longer than I would have expected and the arrival from the kitchen was very spread out, including one order incorrect…

When we got to taste the food the disappointment started. I had ordered the Surf and Turf which was described in the menu as fillet steak with king prawns at almost £35.00. My Son and daughter in law ordered the fillet steak and when these arrived I thought I was going to be in for a real treat when mine came…….My steak was about 1 third the size of the steaks the family had! My wife ordered the house Burger, which arrived cold. My Youngest son ordered the very cheesy burger which originally arrived as a blue cheese burger with the waiting staff alluding to him having ordered that……hardly likely, he hates blue cheese!!!! Once my son had the correct meal, it too was cold, and the burger was far from enjoyable. My steak was cold (as well as tiny), the king prawns which were supposed to have been cooked in garlic butter tasted of nothing, were rubbery & impossible to remove from their shells… and as for the chips served with mine, I really don’t know what happened to them but it probably wasn’t pleasant.

So, the next thing was to try and get the attention of a member of waiting staff……..they at that moment seemed as plentiful as unicorns and my wife who was so upset at this point, had to go and seek out the manager (at least thats who we think he was). First impressions I got was that he was annoyed at us complaining, he obviously was not expecting three dissatisfied customers….realistically, he shouldn’t have had three dissatisfied customers had the food been of even reasonable quality.

He did offer to replace my sons food, but my son was reluctant to do so based on the appearance of his food when finally served. My wife was offered a replacement initially, but really didn’t want another long wait while it was cooked. His attitude over my main course would not have looked out of place in a “Fawlty Towers Script” I was asked what was wrong and when I advised him his initial reaction was to say out loud “well, I won’t be bothering to replace that one then”!!! Really? There was no apology for the dreadful food at that time, in fact I don’t think we got one even when we left. So there I am “celebrating” my 60th birthday with no dinner. The manager, if thats who he was, returned to the table and proceeded to dispute his original comments, finally after being very defensive for a few minutes, apologised for something he had previously denied doing!

He did advise us that the unsatisfactory meals would removed from our bill as if he was doing us a huge favour!!

All in all, a special day ruined.

What I would say is that this establishment does seem very popular with regular customers….perhaps they set the bar low in a choice of...

Avoid, avoid, avoid. The manager.. (I state manager loosely) was rude, a complete a waste of space, the guy in the white and grey tartan shirt with a face like a slapped bum with the glasses, white male approximately, 60 years old. The girls who served us (including Emily who settled our bill) were absolutely lovely, they even apologised for our service profusely and how long we were waiting, as for the manager no words can describe his lack of accountability or even acknowledgement of our poor service. We arrived at 1245, served at the bar brilliantly and were shown to our table with no issues. At 1305 we ordered our starters and mains. Starters arrived at 1350, no check back on our table if the starters were okay. Mains arrived at 1500 (2 hours after we arrived) I ordered the swordfish and it was completely raw. When we arrived we were sat on Table 45 and the table directly behind us Table 40 was undergoing a deep clean and the staff were not quiet and I came to understand that there was a persons sick covered over the table and the window behind us, now I understand why, raw food served up to customers making them sick. I was just lucky that I sent it back. My swordfish was served at 1500 sent back at 1502 and came back at 1510 (god knows how so quickly considering it took nearly 2 hours to come out initially and it wasn’t even that busy, literally 15 tables at a push). I managed to get the managers attention before our mains were served, he stated we were the next table coming out of the kitchen to which I explained our waitress (who was genuinely lovely) explained we were the next table to come out 20 mins prior and we’d witnessed 2 other tables of 6’s food come out. The manager was so rude and stated because we ordered 3x starters that’s why our order was put behind the others. No apology was given he simply walked away after stating we were definitely next. You best believe it.. we were not next. Desserts taken at 1515 when we helped ourselves to the dessert menus, (we were starving so ate the mediocre cold food within minutes). And we left at 1545 when still nothing and no show of anything. We paid £145 for a terrible meal, terrible service, cold and raw food. We left 3.5 hours after we arrived, the manager rolled his eyes when asked the waitress for the bill before our desserts were served as she told him we were paying and leaving. I’m glad I looked at him when she told him because I wouldn’t have seen him look at me and roll his eyes. I could have gotten better frozen food from Sainsbury’s at 1/5th of the price but we all know we don’t eat out for the food all the time we come for the service and yet I’ve still paid £145 for a god awful service. The girls who served us, it was not their fault and they are a credit to your chain but the manager, well.. is he just a miserable old man waiting for his pension, I think so.. I appreciate restaurants have bad days but rudeness and basic customer service skills from a manager is really not asking for a lot when I’ve parted with £145...

We have been to the Oak on the Green many times and have previously enjoyed the food. We arrived with the dog and as always, the staff were very accommodating and friendly - they found us a table where we could sit, provided a water bowl and snacks for the dog. It took a while for us to have our drinks order taken which we were surprised about as the restaurant was quite empty. We were very hungry and were very much looking forward to what we seemed to be a delicious lunch. Two of our party ordered crispy duck, two had the children’s menu, one had the lamb salad and i had beef chilli. We waited over forty minutes for our food, which again we were surprised at because of how quiet the restaurant was. Unfortunately the crispy duck was far from crispy, and it was served with seaweed which had a very unpleasant gelatinous texture to it. The children’s burgers were very over cooked and the buns lacked any real substance so fell apart. I was disappointed to find that my rice and the rice in the “crispy” duck salad was microwaveable rice, which also made us question why our food had taken so long. The lamb salad was oily and disappointing. We had to get up and ask for our own drinks and it was only once we had finished we’re we asked if everything was ok. I explained our thoughts about the seaweed to which the waitress didn’t really know much about what it was meant to be like but she would pass our feedback to the kitchen. We then ordered the children’s desserts - one brownie and one pancake stack. The brownie was tasty and the ice cream was of good quality. The pancakes however, were served with an unidentifiable fruit (both in taste and texture) which were described as seasonal berries. When our bill came, which again took some time, I asked for the service charge to be taken off and explained that realistically, if we hadn’t been so hungry we probably wouldn’t have eaten our lunch as the quality of the food was very poor in comparison to previous visits. I am disappointed as this is a lovely restaurant which I have visited several times, but I will be in no rush to return or recommend. For the price we paid, I would have expected better service and much better...