The Black Swan — Restaurant in North East Derbyshire

I’m really sorry but this was probably the worst Sunday roast I’ve had in my life. Firstly the portion size was ridiculously big (clearly quantity over quality), beef and turkey sliced 1” thick was hard to get through, especially as the meat was so dry (I’ve heard of “well done” meat but this was “congratulations”) it took us two jugs of gravy to try and moisten it, which was tasteless and watered down, more like stock - or maybe got mixed up with dishwater. Never have I been served vegetables so bland and unseasoned, thrown on the plate. Roast potatoes should be a staple of a Sunday roast, but didn’t seem like they’d been in the oven? Mash potato also completely unseasoned with lumps of uncooked potato. Neither myself nor partner could finish the food. Looks nothing like the pictures on the internet, but they did mention they had a new chef last week - which in fairness you asked us to review. I now see similar reviews of Sunday roasts online so it doesn’t look like us having a bad experience. Hope you get this sorted. Going out to pay £20 a head for food, we’d at least expect something slightly better than we could do ourselves at home.

Only positive was good gluten free options, just shame food isn’t up to scratch. Waiting staff were also great and we really appreciate the bill being taken off…but this isn’t how to run Sunday service or restaurant. We love supporting the pub trade and hate to not be charged (thought of pubs losing money is terrible, especially from working in industry), but this was really bad and verging...

We attended for Sunday lunch , and the food was dreadful on the whole. It had changed hands since our last visit , and they seriously had gone downhill , they really do need a decent chef. I had soup that was both bland and unseasoned, and stuck to the spoon like mushy peas , (not liquid , as soups should be). Even a nice homemade thick soup isnt like baby food...the bread roll couldnt have been dipped into it...(more like spread on it )...🙄 The staff seemed very young , and one was totally out of her depth ! Asking if we wanted anything else as she was collecting my soup bowl...no , we just came in to share a bowl soup between 3 of us ??? My mother paid over £16 for a pie that was so hard , she couldn't get through the hard , burnt crust. I was served a cold side salad , with a very overcooked sweet potato and chick pea curry , I couldn't taste the curry it was so over sweet . It had no chunks in it , it was just another mushy mess... I'd expect maybe a naan bread , or poppadom , whose idea that salad was I don't know !! The butter with the "soup " roll , was obviously margarine, definitely not butter. All in all it was a disaster , no discount of any sort was offered , wouldn't go there again , needed to eat on the way home. Don't waste your money , my poor mums treat to...

Appalling! I ordered the lamb shank which was ok, my partner ordered the mixed grill and the steak came a little under done, we asked for it to be sent back and done “well” it took a while to come back out. The cook had thrown everything back onto the grill and it was all very over done and now piled high with peas and greasy chips to hide the meat which was now all similarly looking lumps of blackened fatty mass. My partner refused to pay as he couldn’t and didn’t eat the food, the cook came out and started an argument at our table which was very embarrassing in front of the other patrons. She told us she would reduce the price but not take the full cost off, then went to the bar and started audibly complaining about us and shouting across the bar to the staff on till about the guy at table 5 refusing to pay his bill!!! I went over to quietly try to defuse the situation and explain that this is not appropriate at all. In all fairness to her she did apologise and took the meal from the bill once I pointed out the extremely inappropriate handling of the situation. Bad food experience is one thing, but publicly shaming your customers into paying for food they couldn’t eat is unbelievable. Stunning location and potential for an amazing evening, shamefully squandered. I won’t...