Suffield Arms — Restaurant in North Norfolk

We visited the Suffield Arms a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday night. What I hate but am compelled to call the 'vibe' was excellent - relaxed yet stylish, with a warm approach to service, busy with a lot of people evidently enjoying themselves.

So much about the food was excellent - the vegetarian dishes in particular were consistently superb, the aubergine fritters in particular being a standout dish. Even the padron peppers - which surely are just peppers, oil, salt and lemon juice, were elevated beyond anything I'd had anywhere else.

The only meat/seafood dishes we had weren't quite at the same level - a venison kofta was fairly dense and to me didn't seem to have much flavour. The calamari was a curious interpretation - extremely small, thin ribbons of squid rather than the more substantial rings you usually see. Unfortunately this just made them taste of batter to me - there may have been some level of culinary innovation at play that went above my head but to me they were by a margin the worst dish of the evening.

What was ultimately decisive in giving it four rather five stars was my after dinner coffee - I asked for a single decaf espresso. About ten minutes later when the waitress came over and asked whether it had arrived (it had not). It finally arrived five minutes later, luke warm and gritty but I didn't think anything of it. It was only when we got home and I took a closer look at the bill that I realised that not only had it not been taken off the bill (as I would expect given that it was forgotten about), but we had been charged £5, an outrageous amount for any espresso but especially a single decaf.

That left a bit of a sour taste because although it was by no means a cheap meal, running a restaurant of this quality is an expensive business and given the quality of the food we didn't resent paying it, but that was taking the proverbial.

Still it's an excellent place to eat with a sense of style and fun, and all in all we thoroughly...

We'd seen the Jay Rayner review of this place in the Guardian and immediately thought this sounded like our kind of place, with a slight reservation that these places can be a bit stuffy, whereas we're a bit scruffy. We were camping up near Cromer and caught the train from there down to Gunton station which is literally a stone's throw from The Suffield. The building itself is gorgeous and set beautifully on its own. It was earlyish lunchtime and we'd arrived early to grab a pint in the bar beforehand. Great pubby bar, friendly welcome and a decent pint of local ale. TV, pool table and a decidedly 80's/90's new wave/indie soundtrack were surprising in the tasteful woody bar. Hopefully that all means it works well as a proper pub in the evenings. Behind the bar it opens up into a modern glassy restaurant overlooking the garden and surrounding countryside. All is calm, friendly, relaxed. The excellent soundtrack continues in here, which was an extra bonus. Glass of cava while perusing the menu. Is that a Nick Cave track? Oh yes, Nature Boy. Extra marks. Dunno what the largely blue-rinse brigade occupying the other tables made of it though. We ordered generously, loved everything - whipped feta, garlic prawns, aubergine fritte, croquetas, harissa lamb, a salad, and even some mistakenly-delivered corn ribs which we would never have ordered ourselves but which were a revelation. A sufficient quantity of excellent Mugada Rosado rounded thigs off. We left feeling that warm glow you so rarely get these days. It wasn't even that expensive for the quality. We'd just missed the train back so whiled away the lengthy gap until the next one by walking some of all that off to The Vernon Arms in Southrepps for a pint, which was great. Top...

Memorable for all the wrong reasons.

I've never experienced anything like this in a restaurant before.

We asked the bar staff if we could have a drink before dinner - they confirmed that was fine. The restaurant then proceeded to cancel our dinner reservation; we caught it just in time and they managed to seat us. Dishes were hit and miss but overall we were having a nice time.

Where the evening became actively unpleasant was when we were served burnt potatoes as part of a patatas bravas dish; we asked for them to be replaced (they were clearly black at the edges and bitter). The waiter took them back to the kitchen and the chef seemed to get very angry, insisting that they weren't burnt, repeatedly. As you can imagine, this made us feel very awkward as we could clearly hear him from our seats.

I'd jokingly mentioned to my partner that now we would be sent underdone potatoes. Needless to say, after a long wait, a dish of patatas bravas was brought out - the manager gave them to us and told us 'chef has undercooked the potatoes for you'. This kind of passive aggressive, bullying behaviour has no place in restaurants. I've never felt more patronised or disappointed in a hospitality environment; the manager trying to play innocent was the final, disingenuous straw.

There was no chance of saving the meal at this point and we asked for the bill, paid up and left.

For the sake of transparency: I've been in touch with the restaurant since; they've apologised and offered us a...