Bishop's — Restaurant in Norwich

Very surprised how disappointing this meal and experience was, as the reviews look good?

About 70% of the food was WAY over salted to the point of inedible. That awful overpowering taste of buckets of cheap salt. Clearly whoever made the scallop dish sauce and the venison spring roll have not tasted the food of it would never have been served. No excuse not to taste food in an expensive place like this. Owner didn't sound surprised or interested when we pointed this out. My starter was a salad with cauliflower and beetroot in it. Tasty. Only it was the smallest thing I have ever been served and charged for in my life. Two small spoons of salad! And I'm into quality over quantity, and it was expensive. My main of lemon sole was delicious I must say, but again very small portion. My husbands venison was overcooked on the outside to a dry black, tasteless lump. Inside was more rare which held promise, but sadly was entirely bland and tasteless. Desert was ordered as we were still very hungry, And that was the worst of the lot sadly. A sticky toffee pudding. Which was not sticky, was STONE COLD, brown sponge tiny square, a tiny amount of boring COLD solid sauce. And a tiny scoop of cheap ice cream. It was all cold, borne out by the fact that ages later, the ice cream was still frozen solid. The owner was charmless throughout but did take the desserts off our bill, which was something.

The female staff seemed friendly, but it was hard to get served often, despite it not being full. We had a late booking at 8pm, and got there 7.40. As it was not full, we were able to be seated which was great. However, we did not get our starters till nearly 9pm, despite ordering promptly, this was ridiculous. The staff need to be trained much better. One forgot my order. The other took my expensive evening jacket and said she would stuff it into the sleeve of my coat for me!! Er, NO. please hang it, it's not a students jumper.

During the meal, the charmless owner came and said if I liked the Aperol spritz, I said yes, he seemed very proud and said he had made them all himself. Did he want a medal? It tasted fine, as aperol is always the same out of the bottle. However, I had three of them and I barely drink. Normally two drinks and I'm quite quite merry. But I had three of these, and it was like I had drunk three sodas, not even a tiny bit tiddly on my birthday :-( But oh, wait, soda and no prosecco is exactly what it must have been. Come on! Prosecco is cheap, and with the prices you charge, there is no excuse here. People know when they are being shorted on drinks.

It was my 50th birthday treat, and I went home hungry, disappointed and sober. Thanks...

I went with my daughter to this restaurant. First impressions were very good. However, I’m sad to say things rapidly deteriorated. We ordered the roast beef meal. As usual it arrived with most of it piled under the meat. This seems to be how it’s presented these days. It’s not how I want my roast meal plated. I like things to be separate. I pointed out to the very nice waitress that the so called roast potatoes were soggy because they were placed under the meat along with other vegetables. The Yorkshire pudding looked wonderful, perched on top of the beef. Looks can be so deceiving. It turned out to be chewy & difficult to cut. I couldn’t eat it. A lady on the next table left her Yorkshire pudding too. The meat was lovely & the gravy. The other vegetables were okay. The worst part of our experience was the enormous noise. It was awful. Another couple were also troubled by it & they moved to the bar area. There are too many tables for such a small restaurant. When we complained the owner was sarcastic & unpleasant. Not a nice man. We took the dessert & what we had left, home & put the potatoes & the Yorkshire pudding into a deep fat fryer. It brought them to life. I would suggest that if the restaurant has a deep fat fryer they should do the same just before serving to ensure that both are crispy. Needless to say, that was our first...

I've eaten here a few times, and honestly it would be 3 stars maximum anywhere outside of Norwich. The manager is obnoxious and runs a pretentious yet average place. I booked a table for an anniversary celebration with my wife on Friday. Because I knew I was picking up my brother from Brize Norton that morning, I booked it as late as I could, 2030h. As the day went on, it turned out my brother's flight was delayed 4 hours, he was on the Cyprus flight, having returned from Iraq, so around 1600, I figured I wouldn't make it and called the restaurant to let them know. The manager flew off the handle and told me I had to be there. Then he shouted down the phone that he was going to charge me £20. I know things are difficult for restaurateurs, but they're difficult for everyone and it feels they are trying to justify billing people for making a booking and taking advantage of a crisis. Sometimes people genuinely can't make their booking. I don't think they should be fined for that. It turns out he charged me £40 for the cancelled booking, and I went from thinking maybe I'd make a booking for the next day to make up for it to thinking, I hope the obnoxious jumped up waiter goes bust. And his...