Birdhouse Tea Bar & Kitchen — Restaurant in Sheffield

This was our first visit to Bird House, we decided to come for brunch because we’d seen the glowing reviews. Regrettably this is not of of those.

Upon our arrival we were told it'd be about a 20 minute wait as we hadn't booked a table, this was fine, and we’d waited about 5 minutes before a table became available - unfortunately this is where our good experience of Bird House ended.

We started with drinks, three pots of English breakfast tea. This may as well have been water and milk, and arrived lukewarm so we didn't even have time for it to brew for more flavour or we’d have been drinking cold tea.

I ordered a Brunch Bagel with “grilled” halloumi, poached egg, it was also supposed to come with vegetarian sausage and potatoes which they were out of (I hadn’t realised we’d gone back in time to mid-1800’s period Ireland), so it was substituted for home made beans. Long story short, my bagel was bland, the egg yolks were solid, the grill must have been broken as the halloumi showed no signs of being cooked, and the beans tasted of nothing with a hint of tomato.

My party of two also had the same issues; one had ordered the Full English: the poached eggs had solid yolks and runny whites, and the whole dish was just as flavourless as my own. The other ordered Caramelised Banana Pancakes, despite beautiful presentation, they tasted like the batter was made from cardboard.

All of us collectively agreed, after only sampling the food, that we would not be happy paying for such a poor quality meal. We brought our issues to the attention of the nearest staff who apologised and said she’d bring the manager. The manager never came and instead sent another member of staff to deal with the situation.

Firstly we were told that they could offer a 20% discount. This was not some ploy to get a discount or a free meal, all dishes were devoid of taste and inedible. Not happy with the discount, we stated we just wanted to leave. The staff member said that this was not possible and that she would go back to the manager. Upon her return she told us that the elusive manager had said we could have a 50% discount and that was the maximum that could be offered. The food we’d been presented with was not even worth that, even if we could have stomached it. We reiterated that we just wanted to leave and are not paying for a meal that is not good enough to eat, despite our food only having a fork-full eaten each, we were told that this was “theft”.

After some debate we said that we were leaving and the staff member hurriedly collected the plates, huffed “Fine then. Go.” and stormed off.

Obviously still hungry we visited another brunch venue in Sheffield, who coincidently served Bird House tea, but this time it actually was served hot enough to be allowed to brew and was very nice, however, the food was leagues above what was served at Bird House.

I would have been happy to chalk my visit to Bird House off as a bad experience and not left any sort of review if not for the level of ineptitude that the staff member had displayed in dealing...

I have such mixed feelings about this place after visiting a few times. On one hand, it's lovely, it's nicely decorated, the staff are really friendly, and the menu selection is good. Their chai latte is one of the best I've ever had. However, there is also a growing downside. Every time I've been I've not been given a spoon to stir sugar with my drink, which is quite annoying, I've also never been asked if I wanted sugar etc so I've always had to make a point of asking for it, I'm yet to remember to ask for the spoon and usually have to use my fork. I always order the breakfast brunch which always seems to come with one egg very overcooked, and the other cooked perfectly, very strange coincidence for it to happen every time so I don't know if it's deliberate. The last time I came, I ordered some smashed avocado along with my brunch because as nice as it is to see spinach on a menu, the dish is really missing the avocado. I was a bit surprised when it came ice cold, i would have expected it to be either made fresh or warmed up slightly if taken out of the fridge and being served along with a warm meal. On this occasion my spinach had caught the pan and was a bit burnt in areas so I had to pick those bits out because the taste of burnt spinach is quite strong. All things I can live with individually, but the negatives are starting to tot up. Now I'd say this cafe in general is bordering on being a bit pricey, it's not somewhere I'd go every week, just as a treat but to see I'd been charged £4!!! For the tiny pot of ice cold avocado is quite disappointing and it's discouraged me from returning. The meal and chai latte just wasn't worth a total of £23 something. I could have gone out and had a meal twice the size for...

I found this place on google and saw it was one of the best brunch places in Sheffield. I went at 9am on Thursday, and was hoping to get food and a bakery item as they looked really good on google. There was only one of each bakery item on display which was quite disappointing. I sat upstairs and waited for someone to take my order. When I got up, someone came and said I’d be seen to shortly. I ordered the Raspberry and Pistachio pancakes and Iced Birdhouse Dirty Chai. While having my brunch, the couple next to me also got up to order, then someone came and took their order.

The food was yummy. The pancakes were fluffy and hot. The raspberry compote was fresh and tart with whole raspberries in there too. The crushed pistachios added a nice crunch to the dish and the cream tasted freshly whipped. I think it was different to the cream on the chai. That tasted like squirty cream. Still, the chai was tasty. Not as “dirty” as I would have liked. I expected more sweet cinnamon and coffee flavour but it was more of a regular iced coffee with a little cinnamon and sweetness. Not sure if it’s worth £4.50. I paid at the end. I don’t know what others think about that, but I prefer to pay first then eat and leave. Show your student card and you’ll get a student discount.

Overall I really liked this place. The presentation was stunning and the place itself had good vibes and lighting. It’s definitely one of the tastiest brunch places I’ve tried so far...