The Castle Inn — Restaurant in North West Leicestershire

Nipped in for a quick bite on a Friday evening. We went up to what looked like the restaurant bar and asked if it was possible to get a table but were directed to the main bar to ask about this. The place was packed- getting served at the internal bar would have been a bit of a fight. Had a similar experience on a visit here before because there's not much space around the bar so you tend to get an impenetrable crowd instead of any sort of line. Eventually managed to get the attention of a member of staff and were told the restaurant was fully booked, however we could sit outside and order food at the bar to our outside table. Would have saved us some time if that was communicated through the team and relayed by the first person we asked instead of sending us to queue elsewhere.

We did order to an outside table, and the food was excellent. The small pizzas really are quite small. But if you have a couple of sides they're perfect to not overstuff you. If you want to just eat pizza probably get a large. Also they had really interesting topping selections on the pizzas- I had the spiced aubergine, creme fraiche and honey. It was absolutely delicious. The chips were hot and well seasoned, the greek salad also really nice- I did miss the addition of peppers and would possibly remove the pea shoots and sub in the peppers to improve this and keep it more authentic though.

Drinks were nice and the atmosphere inside was quite cosy and outside had a nice vibe with the tasteful lightning and wooden furniture. Would definitely return (but probably make a reservation. It's busy...

I would like to start by saying what a beautiful restaurant. Food was lovely and is quite adventurous with its flavours, it is such a shame that the servers/service are letting the Chefs and customers down. We came in and were welcomed by a FOH lady after that we got our order taken. I had a starter and it came very fast after that we waited for someone to walk by for 20 minutes minimum to ask us when we would like our food. The kitchen wasn't busy and the bar area was being handled by other servers however our server kept walking around ignoring the food that was waiting to be taken ( she wasn't busy as she was looking around the room bored ?)and not cleaning the tables. If that wasn't bad enough we waited another 20 minutes for our server to come back to take our food and pay.while we were waiting and eating the FOH lady had left the door open to let people to get in for some event letting all the cold air inside for a long time making us and our food cold to the point that the chef grabbed the fish that was waiting to be served and shoved it back in the oven. The chef was waiting that long for the server that he had to shout the servers to come also I heard someone on the table next to us saying that perhaps they should just go home. I hope this situation changes as I worry if the restaurant gets any busier you will one loose alot of business and you could be saving yourselves time by seating more customers. Wish...

The food as always was lovely. However things went very wrong with the service. We were a group of 10.

The starters came quite quickly and were lovely. We then waited 45 minutes for our mains to arrive. Again the food was awesome.

The deserts took so long to come 3 of us cancelled. The other 7 people persisted and after 1 hour 15 minutes our deserts landed. We sat to eat at 7pm and received our deserts at 945/

One of our group is lactose intolerant. We told the waitress that sat us that he is lactose intolerant. His pizza was delivered without cheese and so the restaurant was aware of his intolerance. I had commented our our preorder that he is lactose intolerant. When his sorbet was out in front of him he double checked if it was sorbet and was told that it was. It was indeed ice cream and he spent 1 hour outside the restaurant vomiting.

This was not the worst. The young waiter accused us of not informing you of his intolerance and blamed us for not telling you. This was completely unacceptable.

We were given a small discount for the inconvenience but no apology for the resulting evening of stomach cramps and...