The Reverie — Restaurant in Mole Valley

lovely location and views food was mostly good and drinks were good friendly and polite staff

we’d not visited here before and we were celebrating my mother’s 77th birthday. We were surprised that we were pointed to the regular car park as you have to climb steep steps to the restaurant (even the sign says ‘caution steep steps’). Whilst my mother is mobile there is another option for parking nearer the restaurant that would have been much more suitable. My mother was sitting in the front of the car chatting to the attendant at the front gate so it’s disappointing that this wasn’t a consideration. as we were a party of 8 we had to pre-order our food. It took 40 minutes to come out from arrival which is a long time especially when you have a 3 year old and 6 year old. We thought service would be much better / quicker. Having to wait that long, seeing as our food order had been made the day before, seemed a bit ridiculous. some of the service felt a bit amateur and unprofessional. There were 8 of us and one of our drinks got forgotten so we enquired with the waitress who said she’d get it for us but then proceeded to clear tables and we had to wait even longer for the drink. If there is an error it should be rectified immediately. If it was a cheap place to eat we wouldn’t be so bothered but it’s expensive to eat there so you’d expect quality service. 6 adults had roast beef. It was mostly fine. My mother’s was so red and rare it was barely cooked / pretty much raw. Service was slow and difficult to get attention without having to get up and go inside so I ended up swapping meat with my mother so she could eat what was edible to her the lemon curd pavlova was extremely sweet. The lemon had too much sugar in it, it was sickly. The raspberries created some balance but there were only 5 on the plate so not enough. The pavlova seemed to be bought in and the raspberry croissant mille feuille left a lot to be desired. We believe that these desserts are put together / assembled rather than created from scratch. I received an email the day before our reservation requesting the pre-order information which was extremely last minute. I’d expect much more notice than that. When replying to pre-order our food I asked if it would be ok to put a birthday message on my mother’s dessert dish or a candle put into her dessert (I would bring the candle). Neither of these things were done which was disappointing.

Really missing the finer points and personal touch here. It could be a great venue but lacking in the service department. Expensive for what you get overall with regards to the food...

I can't really be bothered wasting my time on a lengthy review, but the more I think about our experience at 'The Reverie' the more I feel I have to express my disappointment. It was my daughter's 30th birthday on the 2nd of March and, as part of the celebrations, we booked a 'Dome,' a bit of a non event I might add. In short, we waited, unattended, for more than 40 minutes until eventually my wife decided to go inside the main resturant to remind the staff that we were on the premises and ready to order. Fortunately, only five out of the party opted for a starter, which eventually arrived at our 'Dome' some thirty plus minutes later. The ham hock terrine measured no more than the size of half a Ryvita cracker and, to give it the benefit of the doubt, maybe twice as thick, perhaps a centimetre in all. I had clams, which had been cooked for such a long time, that they had almost turned to soup. Not good!! Eventually, some considerable time later, we embarked on the mains which, once again, took an eternity to arrive.The portions were poor! Two of the party were vegan, and ordered the beetroot salad. When it eventually turned up, there was no more than a handful of assorted leaves and, if they were lucky, half a small beetroot and something resembling couscous mixed in amongst it. We could only smile at this untidy presentation. My son in law had a beef sandwich, which again was a pathetic portion. This dish was also garnished with a similar amount of random various leaves, approximately arranged on the same plate. The beef was almost raw, which I appreciate some people enjoy, but in this instance, he was never asked how he would like it cooked. Suffice to say he couldn't finish this unappetising bloody mess. The sea bream was overcooked and small in portion size. The chicken was equally insufficient and the burger was extremely dry and of poor quality. In addition, the chef's attempt to make the said burger appear appetising included a slightly stale, cold bun with one leaf of lettuce, one slice of tomato and a tiny portion of melted cheese placed on top. The chips were burnt and, to be perfectly frank, had it been a Macdonald's quarter pounder with cheese and medium fries, I would have been delighted. I think you've got the gist of my review by now, (I really didn't intend to get so involved, but once I started, I found it very difficult to stop!) so I'll simply conclude with a brief summary... Our experience at 'The Reverie' was at best unsatisfactory. We will not be eating at this...

GOOD: 1: location and view, stunning ( we are locals but still find the lake view amazing 2: service. young but attentive and keen always willing Drinks; Wine and beer were locally sourced ( nor why we picked them ) but crucially a great beer and wine BAD: 1: the reverie charges you admission for a meal at 7.50 before you eat a morsel

1 £ 46.00 fee for a very ordinary 'dome' experience ( try london sites on the thames, tower bridge etc for an better/equally priced and far better experience) 2: food, we had a beef and pork belly roast with veg, both of which were warm