Osea View — Restaurant in Maldon

What a shame. This place has all the potential to be something really special, but on our first visit it turned out to be a huge disappointment. We booked, and due to not being able to book a couple of days earlier, assumed that booking was essential. It turns out booking definitely isn’t essential, and shortly after being sat down upstairs and being told that someone would be up shortly to take our order, a non booking group of about 12 sat down at the boat table and proceeded to get their order in themselves downstairs before we were even asked about drinks. Maybe they know how to make things happen here? I’m not sure if this is where it all went wrong this day, as we sat patiently for over an hour before getting our coffees, which were now mostly contained within the saucer, and watched as the large table received an endless stream of incorrect orders and missing drinks, some of which they never received. The food that was coming out to them looked great though, so we waited on. After an hour and 15 minutes, we received our food, which also looked great. However looks were very deceiving. I can only assume that our meals had sat under some sort of heat lamp for a good half hour, as somehow the sourdough toast and the Cornish seaweed rosti were absolutely solid. It was like trying to cut wood. Poached eggs were underdone with mostly clear goo spilling out. Homemade beans were tasty but stone cold. Coffees were very average, I think maybe my milk was burnt if that’s even possible? Was very odd, as the ingredients were great, recipes were very decent, presentation was very good too, but the delivery and execution of service was really really bad. Kind of hoping it was an unusually bad day for them (BH Monday) but I’m not sure that I’ll be able to convince the other half to give them another...

We would like to share our views on our recent experience at this venue.

Firstly, we booked the table in March for 1:00pm, upon arrival we checked in and were told that the table needed clearing, with this we were quite surprised as we had pre booked and paid for the table for 1:00pm, noticed other tables had reserved signs on which made us confused as to why ours didn’t.

Once we eventually sat down at our designated table, which we loved because of the view! The waitress came over to take our drinks order, food arrived at 1:25pm on slates, 4 slices of the same cake, 3 slices of another, 1 shortbread biscuit to share and a slice of chocolate torte to share and 3 scones to share between the 2 of them. The Dairy free option didn’t have scones (or if it did it was added onto the dairy option stand which then made me not want it due to cross contamination) or did anyone mention it being dairy free when placed down in-front of us. We did find it rather odd that there were no plates for us to eat on. No body came over to check that we were ok or needed anything but did other tables.

When my daughter went to the front to get boxes for us to take our food away, the 3 people behind the serving area ignored her for quite some time. Yes I am aware that they were busy preparing drinks, but surely just a quick “sorry, won’t be a moment” acknowledgment would have been substantial. The table next to us had their afternoon tea taken away and boxed up which we had to do ourselves.

If we’re honest, we do feel as if we were an inconvenience to the staff and it was a kind of “well we’ve got your money, we don’t really care” vibe.

I have contacted the venue a week ago and still heard nothing from them.

Have posted pictures- 1st is what instagram showed (which looks lovely) 2nd and 3rd...

Possibly the worst experience I've ever had at a cafe. Really disappointed. Our first time visiting Osea View and unfortunately our last.

There seems to be no one in control, everything just seemed a mess and an inconvenience to the staff. You really need to stick to just table service - and just bookings only, we witnessed a mix of these PLUS walk-in's & counter ordering, and it made it an absolutely shambles. We also witnessed some awful customer service. Basically: ''Theres no chairs at your reserved table, but I'm busy so you'll have to go find your own'

Milk in the coffee tasted burnt, most of the coffee was also in the saucer and plonked onto the table, you could feel how annoyed the staff were. We know you were busy, we saw that, but not caring if anyone is happy or not when you're paying for a service is rubbish. We seemed invisible. After waiting for table service, we eventually gave up when a table of 15 walked-in without a booking and ordered at the counter whilst we had been sat waiting for service for 30mins.

When the food eventually arrived, the beans were stone cold, the toast was very hard - seems as if it was toasted then re-heated. The sachet Brown Sauce is disgusting. You have Tiptree jam why not get Tiptree Brown Sauce too?

We would happily pay more if we knew it would mean we'd get good service and hot food.

It's a real shame, it's a nice spot, and most other aspects of the food were good, but customer service, and the structure of the place made it an...