Marco Pierre White Steakhouse, Bar & Grill Meriden — Restaurant in Metropolitan Borough of Solihull

My wife was given a gift of afternoon tea and we decided to visit on 26th March.

Upon walking in to the Marco Pierre White restaurant we were eventually greeted my a barman with his head down pulling a pint. He didn't make eye contact and mumbled "be with you in a minute". A few minutes pass and somebody else comes along to the bar and says the same thing..... unbelievably a further two members of staff came over and said the same thing. When the fourth person said this I immediately replied with " you are the fourth person to say this" Her reply was quite flippant and not apologetic. Ordinarily I can overlook bad service, however in this case I was not prepared to. One, because my heavily pregnant wife is being made to stand at the bar area, two this is not Wetherspoons and three, because the place is dead. In total I counted 7 occupied tables and at least 5 members of chaotic staff.

The next mission was to find our booking. We had email confirmation however the restaurant could not find the booking. My wife was then made to connect to WIFI to find the booking....it felt like they simply did not believe we had a reservation. Finally after a good 5-10 minutes of stood at the bar we are seated.

We were seated in the darkest part of the restaurant close to another couple. I cannot understand why they would not sit people near the window on such a lovely day. When I asked if we could sit somewhere else the reply was " Well I have to set another table if that is the case". I decided not to agree to her setting another table as I was now concerned at how long this would take.

Ten minutes pass and somebody comes to take a drinks order. I ordered an espresso, my wife ordered Tea...after all this is supposed to be afternoon tea. A further 10 minutes pass and the 'hot' drinks arrive. I immediately send the espresso back for being stone cold. You could not make this up! A new espresso is delivered 5 minutes later.

Twenty minutes passes and another member of staff comes along with a huge pot of tea. I asked why they would bring this and the reply was " this tea is included in the afternoon tea, the one you have just ordered is charged to you". At this point I am about to explode with how crazy this situation is but I have given up.

Eventually the food is delivered. Supermarket bread, bland fillings. Very average and happy this was a gift and not something I had to pay for.

Looking around the restaurant I was actually shocked to see how dirty and dusty it is. I can imagine a lot of people being disappointed when they visit here. On a positive note, the toilet was spotless.

So after a very disappointing experience I am presented with a bill for the espresso and tea (not included in afternoon tea). I paid and ran out of this place as quick as I could....never to return and unfortunately will not try any other Marco Pierre White restaurant as this experience was totally unacceptable. This is the problem with 'celebrity chains'. The high standards they set are not visible and it is merely a name above the door. Any country pub locally would absolutely win against this garbage hands down.

I cannot comment on the main menu. Maybe the food is so good you can overlook the service. Somehow I doubt it.

All in all I would not recommend this restaurant based on terrible customer service, poor communication, less than acceptable cleanliness and overall just a...

A poor experience that will not see us return.

We booked our table for a Saturday evening sitting a few weeks in advance and notified the restaurant upon booking that we had a voucher for the Steak & Wine Groupon deal. Whilst booking we provided the voucher details as requested. All was okay.... so we thought!

We arrived and the restaurant was not busy, but had a nice atmosphere. Upon arrival we were seated and asked if we would like any bread and olives, to which we said yes. We then enquired on whether it was possible for us to pay additional charges to upgrade our voucher and/or Steak. The waitress said she would ask the question and be back shortly. No drinks order was taken at this stage, but we assumed this would be done when the bread arrived.

34 minutes later the Manager arrived at our table to inform us that the voucher couldn't be used after 5pm. We were not aware of this small print as it was a gift, we were only provided a barcode. We were also perplexed as to why this wasn't addressed prior to our arrival, when we had informed them of our voucher and provided the reference number! The manager "honoured" the offer because we were already there, but this straight away put a damper on the evening. Not only that, at this point we still hadn't been asked what drinks we'd like and the bread & olives we asked for upon being seated hadn't arrived.

45 minutes in, we were asked what we'd like to drink and these arrived quickly afterwards. We asked again if we could pay and upgrade the Steak, to be eventually told no. We were however "allowed on this occasion" to order Starters and Desserts?! Odd.

We tried to enjoy our evening despite this poor start and ordered our Starter, Steak & Desserts. We ordered our Steak with Bearnaise sauce... both arrived with Peppercorn. It wasn't worth the complaint at this point, we just wanted to eat and leave. We can say with absolute certainty however, that we will not be returning, and that it was very much a mediocre experience. You are paying for the "name" and not quality of food or service. A shame, but we know...

Well where do i start. We place orders for 11 for starters and mains. Starters arrive with let alone half of the content. Upon asking for the items that had not arrived with the starters to be told they would be straight out to us and receive them twenty minuites after our starers were finished. Mains : I myself ordered a medium cooked T bone steak that was served like it was introduced to what it was cooked in and kicked straight out. Another of our partys steak was more than alive when it arrived at the table and was sent back to arrive back looking like the same peuce of meat but maybe given mouth to mouth. Drinks: When? please tell me when well named estableshment is basicly empty does a round of drinks takes 35 minuites to not arrive at the table and myself had to remind the management that we had placed this order. Puddings: After finishing our mains and waiting near on 50 minuites for someone to clear our table that was set in the glass room for a speical day i asked if some could maybe take a pudding order. I asked to see the manager and was greeted by "Antonio" " Sorry but we have had problems in the kitchen this evening" sorry but not good enough for a well established restarant. Antonio then said to me that he would speak to the manager that he had already presented himself as about our issues. Upon questionibg him on his position he begrudgingly told me he was the duty manager. Very diss satified customer that will never vist this...