The Alchemist Portsmouth — Restaurant in Portsmouth

READ BEFORE VISITING: Experienced disgusting customer service, the food recieved was not as described on the menu (the bang bang salad), it was smothered all over in peanut satay sauce, I didn't want to cause a fuss but the entirety of the meal was ruined and it was essentially a bowl of satay sauce! Reluctantly, I kindly asked if it could be redone but with the satay on the side as if you're spending £10 on purely salad you'd hope to at least enjoy half of it! The response was honestly degrading, insulting remarks were made and the replacement salad took over 40 minutes to arrive, all my friends finished and had to wait for my replacement to come, this establishment clearly has zero understanding of hospitality and customer service! I have worked as a supervisor, a kp a food runner and a bartender in various restraunts and I have never in my life seen anything like this, the management and chefs obviously found my issue laughable, the management seriously need a brush up on hospitality service! I have never cried directly as a result of a dining experience before, so please do not waste your money here and potentially have a lovely day ruined like I did, I very rarely feel the need to write reviews on places but I have geniunely never experienced such an insulting and embarrassing experience! I was completely mortified, this place is all style and ZERO substance, I highly recommend avoiding this chain and venturing the short distance to Albert Road/Palmerston Road where there are so many incredible small independant restaurants and bars that are much more reasonably priced and don't insult you for bringing up a minor issue! Avoid like the...

Such a shame. We went for drinks on the 14th December but regretted it. Firstly, it was unbelievably loud in there. We don’t mind noisy places but honestly it was struggle to talk let alone hear. Secondly, there was no table service so we had to order the drinks at the bar which sounds perfectly normal until you realise that any drinks which have a bit of ‘action’ like bubbles, smoke or flames etc. are done AT the bar so unless your whole party goes with you, they’ll miss it all. So I ended up taking drinks which had done their tricks already back to a disappointment table. We were pretty fed up by this point but decided to try some more drinks just in case things improved. They didn’t. I ordered two VERY different drinks, one sweet and one sour but right in front of my eyes they were made from almost exactly the same mix of whatever the bartenders have in those bottles. I thought that perhaps it would be ok, not being a bartender, what do I know?? But once we tasted them it was clear that the sweet cocktail (Trifle) was in fact nearly as sour as the other drink (can’t remember what it was) but with a bit of cream on top. Looking at the drinks menu we couldn’t believe that the Trifle was made properly and was probably just a made up mix of whatever the bartender had used for the other drink. Maybe he thought we wouldn’t notice or just got it wrong but honestly, we were so underwhelmed and fed up we just left. The restaurant part of the Alchemist seemed to be much better managed. Obviously it was table service so at least those customers got to see the so called ‘drama’ of their...

We have been here before and left really happy and impressed but we must have visited on a particularly lazy day for the staff. Saturday afternoon, rocked up with one toddler and a baby with a very heavy pram. Had to sit upstairs but our guests with the kids were offered no help getting the pram up the stairs whilst the other parent was holding the baby and guiding a toddler. When we eventually arrived, there was space downstairs to push tables together but maybe this wasn’t doable due to covid? Plenty of space outside however. Drinks and food can’t be knocked but the service from start to finish was just not great. Guys who brought the drinks over had to do all the flair that came with the cocktails but we could hardly hear a word they were saying. Maybe it was training day for a new team? Lack of confidence with it all felt very underwhelming and they were battling against the music the whole time. It just felt there was just a considerable lack of consideration from the staff, especially towards the guests with children, and they seemed laid back to the point where it didn’t really feel that they could be bothered to engage. We left particularly disappointed, especially since our experience last year was so positive and fun. I think in places like these when there’s such an emphasis on the performance and theatrical aspect of the experience, especially in regards to the cocktails, the staff need to be up there on that same level, at least seem like they enjoy it, but they just weren’t. It felt like just another student ran...