Bistrot Pierre Plymouth — Restaurant in Plymouth

This was 11 months ago when I gave this restaurant 5 stars: "Always a great place to meet friends and family. Lovely, vibrant atmosphere, great menu and reasonably priced. The lunchtime menu is fantastic value. Friendly staff and an all round relaxed and enjoyable experience."

And this is now: I'm afraid to say that that after two successive disappointments I'm having to revise this. I put the last visit down to a blip; I've been a regular customer here since the place first opened and have always enjoyed the restaurant. But after the disaster of the Sunday just gone, I need to revise my position. Three of us visited on Fathers' Day: two ordered calamari and I ordered the wild mushrooms on toasted sourdough bread. The calamari were tiny portions, sparsely presented on white plates with a dollop of cream sauce and a bit of parsley. My dish though was awful. When I see wild mushrooms on a menu, I expect something like morels, chanterelles, etc; what I received looked more like the sort of thinly sliced button mushroom you can buy in tins and equally tasteless. The bread looked like the tail end of a mini-baguette which was sunk in a soup-like portion of indistinct, thin sauce with overcooked bacon bits so that the bread was a mush. I managed after some time to attract a waitress to complain and send the dish back; she came back to say that the chef said it was a normal serving and that the mushrooms were the ones they had that day and were a wild variety (but she couldn't tell me which - the can was still my bet). By then the others had finished their starters so I declined a replacement. I've seen photos of this dish in other reviews showing a far more pleasant looking dish than the one I received. Next came the Sunday roasts - we'd all gone for the roast belly pork. All three had pieces of pork the size of which you'd normally get in a tasting menu rather than a hearty traditional Sunday roast. All three were over-cooked with the bottom side rock hard where they had been hanging around in a heater too long; one was more fat than meat (and 85/15% ratio at best), one was dried out and the third had really tough, inedible 'crackling'. The menu said the lunches came with 'tender-stem' broccoli - there was none. The roast potatoes were leathery and the red cabbage lacked any sort of flavour and the thin strips of 'roasted' carrot were just unpleasant. Overall the meals were luke-warm on cool plates. Again there was a complaint made and we received two other pieces of pork in response - both only just an improvement on the original. Two of us decided not to risk a third disappointment and declined desserts though our Dad in the party was satisfied with his blood-orange sorbet. When paying the bill I mentioned our disappointment to a not overly interested Manager (at least that was the impression she gave) who eventually offered a 10% discount as a 'goodwill gesture'. I would have preferred good food to a gesture!

All in all, this was a big disappointment. I've only written this review because I have always been a fan of the place and always had decent food and service so I hope this is taken in the manner in which it is intended which is meant to be constructive. After two successive disappointing visits now, it seems to me standards here have slipped and they need some attention. I know it's been tough with Covid and many restaurants have reduced potion sizes and started charging for things like bread (as this restaurant now does) but that shouldn't mean dropping standards nor reducing portions by as much as they were here. My recommendation to the management is that they spend a bit more time at the Pass and keep an eye on the quality of the food the chef is pushing out. I've noticed a number of other negative reviews lately so I know this isn't a one-off. I'll be looking at those reviews closer than I have in the past before I decide to go here again. I sincerely hope that the restaurant soon returns to its past...

The venue was chosen by my niece for a family meal. The place itself looks inviting, nicely decorated and laid out. We had to wait for our table, which was pre-booked, so the 6 of us decided to have a drink and sit outside as it was a warm evening. Time to sit at our table, we had to wait around as there was nobody at the front desk, other people were getting frustrated, eventually we were placed in the corner, right next to the kitchen, there was a glass panel with a view straight into the kitchen area, it soon became stuffy. The waitress came over and took our orders, the drinks arrived swiftly followed by our starters, which were great. Then it all went to pot. They had run out of the roasted chicken, which I had ordered, seriously how can you run out of chicken? So I chose the Pork Medallions in a Bearnaise sauce. A couple arrived and sat on the table close to ours, another 4 people sat opposite them, whilst we were waiting for our mains, the other two tables received theirs, ate and paid up, we were still sat there wondering where ours were. A staff member came over, apologised and said ours was the “next but one”. We waited over an hour, from clearing the starters plates, for our mains to arrive, when they did, my Pork Medallions (plural) turned into a Medallion (single) with what looked like Cous Cous in sauce. When I queried this, the waitress told me they had changed the menu!!! So why was I not told about this? What if I had a food allergy? The veg and potatoes, which is listed as part of the meal, didn’t come with it, so had to be re-ordered, when it arrived, it was all cold, apart from the potatoes which were piping hot, this was all in the same pan. The side dish of Garlic mushrooms had 4 items on the pan, only 1 of which had any garlic butter on, oh and they were cold too. The single Pork medallion on my plate was luke warm and after asking around the table, so was everybody else’s meals. We were not asked if we wanted any dessert, not that any of us did, we just wanted to get out of there. The waitress came with the bill, she had deducted the price of the drinks and also took 25% off the total bill. Overall experience was extremely disappointing, very slow service and cold food, which made me angry. By the way, one of our party is a chef himself, he wasn’t impressed at all. I’ve given this place one star, because I couldn’t give none at all. Very poor, don’t bother. Needless to say, we...

Unfortunately our 1st ever visit to Pierre Bistro in Plymouth wasn't the best. We had our table booked for 6.15pm to which we did arrive 5 minutes late due to finding a parking space but upon for glance it was a beautifully presented establishment. We were greated and shown to our table where we were left for a while before our drinks order was even taken. We had our drinks, then shortly after our orders were taken around 6.40pm. Our starters came about 10 minutes later which we ate, then came our wait. Our server, Milly (who was an absolute gem by the way) came over to us about 7.30pm as our mains were still no where to be seen and apologised as they had a few big tables booked in that night to which we were absolutely fine with. It then got to 8 o clock and still no mains. Again, Milly came over to us and said she will try and find out what was happening to which we thanked her. Finally around 8.30pm our mains finally came out, over 2 hours after arriving, to which by then, we had to eat quite quickly as our 3 hours on the car was up at 9.10pm and we also only just had our 2nd drinks after trying to get someone's attention to try and actually get another drink. I understand that the bigger tables make the most money on a nightly basis, but the few tables of two that were dotted around and quite possibly would visit more frequently over the year thus bringing frequent vevenue to venues to the larger parties celebrating an 80th, 60th or 18th birthday to which those happen once in a blue moon as such. We noticed another table of 2 that had the same issue as us, even they asked where theirs were as tables around them had their starters, main and were given their desserts before the table of 2 even had their mains and they sat done around the same time as myself and my partner. I'm not one to ever leave reviews, but we were so disappointed with our first ever visit it was such a shame as we generally eat out a few times a month not just as a couple but as a family of 4, however, we probably won't be back in a hurry if not at all unfortunately. Milly was the only good review we'd like to leave in regards...