Menagerie — Restaurant in Salford

Beautiful venue, great entertainment acts, good food & music. Terrible service. We booked Menagerie for a Hen Do party and unfortunately the experience and service did not match what is advertised, at all. Not usually one to leave a bad review, but after 'experiencing' Menagerie's Reservations Manager, I'd expect a complaint email to be ignored so... here we are.

Please note: Our waiter was amazing - the service he provided was brilliant, I wish I got his name to include here. This is a management issue. The Hen Party on the table next to us were having the same issues. We apologised to our waiter for being persistent, it wasn't his fault. He told us it's the same story every weekend. Big party bookings, false promises and no communication from management to the guests or staff. An attitude of "you've not spent enough money to be worth our time". It's a mess.

Specifics to watch out for: We paid for balloon decorations and drinks on arrival. We were taken to our table and there were no decorations, no arrival drinks. I went to the front desk, where staff members were frantically opening balloon packages asking me which ones I'd ordered claiming they usually bring balloons and arrival drinks later...? The photos used on the website are completely misleading. I would recommend sending customers photos of your balloon 'clusters', i.e. 3 small helium balloons, so they at least know what to expect.

I sent our meal pre-orders two weeks before the booking date, including notes against the shared appetizers and plates for the vegetarians, but heard nothing back. I followed up. Nothing. I rang one week before our booking and was told by Lewis "oh yes we've received them, everything is fine it's all against your booking on the system" - great. You can imagine the surprise when a waiter came round with a pen and paper asking if there were any vegetarians in the group...

Our balance payment was initially a few hundred pounds more than expected. I queried it, and most of it was service charge, which we had removed. If Lewis had handled the actual booking, mistakes and complaints with a smile and genuine concern / effort to correct things, it wouldn't have been an issue. We settled the balance payment at £40 more than expected because at this point the communication was draining - I just wanted to sit down and enjoy the rest of the evening.

Having worked in hospitality and events, I'd assume there'd be a detailed briefing with staff about the big group bookings before the dinner service started, highlighting things that needed to be prepared and kept on top of. Instead it seemed like staff were just handed last minute instructions and bits of paper, which was frantic and stressful... those vibes passed on to the guests.

Menagerie rely on their aesthetics and atmosphere to fall back on it seems. Thankfully the bride-to-be was tipsy and oblivious having the best time ever, and we...

A massive let down and would not return. Booked a reservation a month prior as it was our top place to visit on our weekend trip to Manchester. Made a reservation for 1645 as the website previously stated the show started at 1700 on Saturdays, and dinner with a show was one of the main things we were looking forward to, as pictures and social media portrayed it to be amazing. We checked the website a few days before and the showtime had changed to 1900, so we rang up and enquired what time it was and if we should change our booking time to make sure our meal would be during the show and we could have the full Menagerie experience. The staff assured me that the show would start at 1730 so didn't need to change our reservation. Yet this was not the case as the show didn't actually start until 1930 but we'd finished our three course meal and the resteraunt needed the table so we had to leave and miss the show. The food was actually quite nice, other than a vegetarian main course came out 'accidently' with bacon on, which was not even discounted from the bill at the end. Additionally the cocktails were disappointing for the extortionate price that they are; ordered the romantica and French kiss and looked not even remotely similar to the pictures on social media so don't get excited for them. Could have got the cocktails for a third of the price in any other bar. Service was average and felt a little rushed after they asked for our main choices three times in the first 5 minutes. The manager was apologetic and offered a drink each at the bar to stay and finally watch the show. Stuck around and the first performer turned out to be a 5 minute act and another 30 wait after that for the next act. Needless to stay we did not stick around for another wait and more disappointing overpriced drinks. On a positive note the interior is stunning and has a lot of potential to be a good place, but was thoroughly disappointed and there's much better places with reasonable prices to go...

I attended this restaurant last night for a dinner reservation with my father for his birthday. I booked a reservation as I have been a number of time previously and advised my father how good it was. However last night I was extremely disappointed with the level of service I received. There was a situation with the main meal where my father had ordered the sea bass and was unaware it did not come with a side dish. This was not a problem initially , we simply called over the waiter to advise we were unaware it was with out any potatoes or vegetables and could we order something to go with it. The waiter who was attending to us was immediately defensive and told us he did tell us we should order something else. This conversation did not happen. He did not advise us anything he just wrote the order down and left the table. He was very rude and defensive when we were quite happy to just order and wait for a side dish. After this we were then ignored the rest of the evening by the waiter and had to ask for further drinks and for the bill with another server who passed on the message to him. We also then had to get someone else attention for the car machine to pay as we were still being ignored. When he came over with the card machine finally his bad attitude the continued. I advised how much we would be paying on card which was the total food and drink bill minus the serving charge. I was then asked " am I not paying the serving charge" I think asking the question is also rude as this is option and my experience I had did not warrant a "gratuity " . He then told me " it is better for me to tell him if I'm not paying it first" again I think this is rude and if I wish to pay for the food and drink alone that is my choice I should not have to justify to an employee who has been rude and ignored myself the later half of the meal. This experience has tainted the nice evening I had planned for my...