Orleans Smokehouse Solihull — Restaurant in Metropolitan Borough of Solihull

So….lets get the elephant out of the room to kick things off….Mitchells & Butlers (the company that owns the Orleans Smokehouse brand), created this new one off brand/venue (for now) as a direct competitor to the increasingly popular Hickory’s Smokehouse brand, which recently opened in Earlswood. Hickories is now owned by the Greene King pub chain.

It has to be said that both venues have done very well since opening at similar times and both continue to be VERY popular venues.

Initial impressions of the M&B Orleans venue (previously a Harvester) were all good. Having had a major overhaul, this is a nice place to visit and has plenty of indoor and outdoor seating. Parking is ample too. The bar area has a sports bar type vibe and the restaurant has lots of cosy seating without feeling overcrowded. Bar choices are usual M&B fair…so nothing spectacular.

Service was great although whilst drinks were served promptly, food was very slow. Whilst this could have been linked to how busy they were….this place is made to cater for large numbers so seemed a bit weird.

Food wise, pretty much all you would expect from a smokehouse was there on the menu. We kept things simple, food wise as it helps to compare this with other Smokehouses in the area.

Starters we went for the Classic corn dogs and popcorn brisket bites. The 3 corn dogs were tasty and a nice dish. The burnt ends were a bit on the dry side, not helped by the fact that they had been coated in batter/breadcrumb type coating and then deep fried (A sign of them creating dishes that can be easily scaled up if the brand does grow).

For the main course and we went for the Ultimate Smokehouse Platter for 2 as it had a bit of everything. We upgraded the fries to cheese and chilli fries…and glad we did.

As mentioned above….the food was slow. Starters took a reasonable 20mins to arrive but the mains took another 40mins. The place was busy….but still.

Stepping through the platter. The three slices of USDA brisket were tasty, well when you poured the beef dripping gravy on it. Without the gravy the meat was tender but very dry and didn’t really have the full on smoked flavours we were expecting. To make matters worse, you only got one small pot of the gravy to share between the two of us, which was not enough. We were told, the gravy is basically pulled from M&B’s other meaty brand….Miller & Carter…so nothing unique here. The brisket really told the story of the other meats too….The smoked wings had been deep fried to an inch of their life so were also dry. They did have a mild smokey flavour but this felt like it was added after cooking rather than representative of how they were cooked. Whilst the baby back and beef ribs were both tender….again they had both been overcooked (/reheated) so had dried out and neither had sufficient gooey sauces to counteract that. The pulled pork actually came mixed within the pit beans so there wasn’t much of that, but at least the beans helped a little with the moisture. For some reason, we didn’t get the cheese & jalapeño sausage so can only think it was missed? Unfortunately we only noticed after looking back at the menu the next day lol.

The mac & cheese was a nice addition but the dish was a little small for two and again had been cooked / reheated a bit too long so was dry. Pickles / slaws were ok….but standard catering pack offering. The chips came with a gooey cheese sauce and mixture of Jalapeños and fresh red chilli’s. This was VERY nice and recommended.

We didn’t have room for a pudding and thankfully we doggy bagged a few bits we couldn’t finish at the table.

In summary, a great venue but the food, whilst tasty, was not quite up with the best in the area. Smokehouse meats cooked right should be proper juicy but everything seemed dry (or completely missing lol). M&B will need to keep an eye on quality if they want to expand this new brand and be a match for the nearby...

We came to this harvester after being turned away from the arden oak harvester as we hadn't booked in advance and that there wasn't enough space at 11 am despite there being plenty of empty tables. So we drove to solihull monkspath harvester. We were having a good time once we were seated and the server was friendly and polite and was very helpful with our birthday cake we brought and took enough interest to ask who she was singing to. Our starters were great and then we got to our mains and the onion nests that came with our steaks were cooked on the outside but raw on the inside, it looked akin to white sauce which was clearly uncooked batter. Raw flour can harbour food poisoning bacteria. We told the server and then she offered to replace it, this time it was well cooked. We had another meal on the table with an onion nest which we cut into after we got the other one replaced, which was also raw. We asked to have it changed but were told we would be charged for it, even if they just took the raw one and cooked it a bit more they didnt have to replace it, we didn't ask how much it was as we weren't going to pay to have uncooked food changed, instead we went to show the chef that it was still raw. We were immediately met with hostility from the chef so went back to our table. The atmosphere had completely changed at the table as we were only a few metres from the service hatch. We finished our mains and decided against dessert as we wanted to leave as quickly as possible. We got the bill and spoke to the manager on the way out, he was polite and understanding to our situation and told us we shouldn't have been charged for our uncooked food to be changed. I was very disappointed with how we were treated for pointing out raw food as you'd think they wouldn't want poison their customers. The manager told us that the chefs are told to follow company guidelines on cooking times and the server told us that they normally come like that. We were compensated by having £10 taken off our bill which we were appreciative of but it didn't make up for our ruined experience. I wouldn't expect a chef to talk to a customer like that and I think with uncooked food, management should take a close look at...

A great new restaurant giving a new lease of life to a previously struggling and outdated Harvester.

Orleans has a great varied menu, very similar to that of the Hickory’s Smokehouse chain. It does feel like Orleans puts in just that little bit more effort and quality into what they do. They offer popcorn to patrons on entry and also have the cinema room for the kids (similar to Hickory’s).

To start, we had the corn dogs, chicken tenders and prawn tacos. Corn dogs were great, lovely batter and not overdone. Chicken tenders were fantastic, great crispy batter full of flavour with amazing juicy chicken. The prawn tacos were quite messy thought and not necessarily anything special.

For mains, firstly we had the brisket. It was pretty good but a little dry, so it may have been slightly overdone. It was still really tasty and went really well with the chilli cheese fries which I would highly recommend. I would say that the brisket was not quite as good as that served at Hickory’s. Next main was the fajitas. These were also great, chicken really juicy and the presentation was fantastic on the 3 tiered stand. The last main we had was the Louisiana chicken burger. This was also really good and had the high quality chicken tenders inside. Had lovey American cheese (melted) on it and bacon which was cooked well. A simple, but beautifully executed dish.

Finally, for dessert we had the brownie/cookie dough thing with the frozen custard. This was really tasty and highly recommended if you like anything brownie or cookie dough based!

I would want to give a special mention to Olivia who was only responsible for clearing our plates, but was so friendly and genuinely cared about how our food and experience was. She took the time to have a little chat with us and spoke about how the restaurant was coming along. It is clear she enjoys her job and would have loved to have been served by her! Big thanks Olivia you were great.

Overall I would really recommend a visit here. It obviously isn’t fine dining or anything like that, but it is really tasty high quality American/BBQ style food and will be a meal you will absolutely enjoy along with service you...