Sam's Chop House — Restaurant in Manchester

Incredibly disappointed and left feeling ripped off by this once loved restaurant. Booked for a family meal on a Sunday, having visited many times pre-lockdown. We also used their delivery service in lockdown but were incredibly disappointed on this visit today.

We were told they were only offering a fixed Sunday Roast menu, which was absolutely fine. Myself and my wife ordered the lamb roast and at £16 I was looking forward to a great meal.

However we were given a different wine than the one we requested. The waitress didn't show us the label, just poured it out for taste test and put it on the table. Turns out it was £6 more expensive than the wine we ordered. It also seemed that this "mistake" had occured on 3 other tables.

As we waited for our food I saw the table next door receive what I thought was their yorkshire and gravy appetiser....I was wrong...turns out it was a main course on a tiny plate. Now I'm not someone that judges a restaurant solely on the size of their portions...so I thought, well it will probably be of the usual great quality Sam's used to have a reputation for.

Sadly I was even more disappointed when my plate arrived. 3 tiny slivers of overly fatty lamb arrived on a luke warm plate. My wife asked for hers to be re-heated...and to be fair....it came back on a very hot plate...but with the same cold food on it.

I'd asked for the sage and onion stuffing balls as a side dish and these turned out to be 4 sizeable balls, but at £4 a go I was expecting something more than just deep fried Paxo stuffing that they were made of.

We went to the restaurant for a family occasion and when the waitress came over to clear our plates. She asked was everything ok, after sorting out the cold plate. I said that the plate had been warmed but the food was cold, and the meal had been very disappointing and not upto the usual standard. "Oh sorry" was the reply and she asked me if I wanted to order any more drinks or desserts.

I asked for the bill and got the additional shock of being charged more for the wine than we wanted, and a "discretionary" service charge of £8.40.

When I queried this with them they took the £6 difference in wine cost off the bill, but I had to ask twice for them to take the service charge off the bill.

What should have been a lovely family meal ended with us leaving with a half finished bottle of wine as the indifference of the staff and poor quality food had left us feeling uncomfortable in a restaurant that had previously had so many great memories.

This will be the last occasion I use Sam's chop house and I'm really disappointed that one of Manchester's great food institutions has reached...

Came in with a reservation and they sat us in a small table in the corner while there was plenty of empty space and better seats in the restaurant. When we ordered, we asked for the starter to come with our mains and the waiter said no problem but they still served the starter first and not with the mains. When we had questions about the food, the waiter was not familiar with the menu or ingredients at all, he could not answer any of our questions. The crab cake was nice, it was a good choice to have as a side. We had steak which was £32 but was not impressed with the flavour and texture. We felt like it was overpriced for the quality. Then lastly we had their cheese burger, but surprisingly it did not have any burger sauce which made the burger felt so dry. We did ask the waiter if there were any burger sauce, he said he doesn’t know and just smiled and walked away. Also most of the time, there weren’t any waiter/waitress around, which felt like there was no service at all. By the time we got our bill, they charged us extra for items we did not order. We had to wait around 10 minutes for a staff to walk in the restaurant then correct the bill for us. We did come here before and it was delightful. But that was a year ago and maybe the management has worsened on the staff and food. Overall, with the price of £30-40 per person, it was not a pleasant experience due to the food quality, staff management and customer service. Yet, they do have 10% service charge. I don’t mind the cost. But just really hope the staffs will be better trained and be the steakhouse it once was. Unfortunately with this experience, I won’t be returning here...

I should of known bad things were a foot when I received a phone call 5 hours before our booking at Sam’s chop house sister restaurant Mr Thomas’s chop house claiming there was a fault in the kitchen and that our original booking couldn’t be honoured ( being a chef for 32 years myself I know this is code for either several of our chefs have walked out or none of the agency chefs have turned up today 😳😳 as apart from a fire in the building nothing stops a restaurant kitchen from functioning especially on a busy Saturday which this was !!!) so with it being my partners birthday I accepted the offer of a table in the sister restaurant Sam’s chop house which was just 2 minutes away from our original destination knowing that trying to get a reservation anywhere else on a Saturday would be a nightmare and our planned day with a visit to the Lowry theatre to see the ballet would be in jeopardy due to the military style planning you need when on a day out in Manchester due to the distance between things worth seeing there how I wished I had gone with my gut feeling and rejected the offer from the moment we arrived at Sam’s chop house the feeling of panic and mayhem was in the air to cut a long story short average food terrible service and a rushed meal with the icing on the cake of a 20% service charge on top made for a truly forgettable experience I would give it a wide berth until whatever issues they have get sorted even then beware it is fundamentally an overpriced pub menu hanging onto the fact a great artist had lamb chops there once cheers Sam’s...