The Winking Prawn — Restaurant in South Hams

We had a good time at dinner, enjoying the nice view having crab, salat and chips. Ordering and paying using the app was a little bit overly complicated and took us too long (bad or interrupted WiFi signal, online payment stuck during the process etc.) While the personal was trying to be helpful we had to fight this out by ourselves. In a self service restaurant or with the same team size of waiters who can take orders and prozess payments the order would have taken 5 not 15 minutes. Another day we took the chance staying there for breakfast. Same annoyance with the online order and unfortunately there was only a typical English breakfast offered under multiple fancy menu names and with strange rules to follow. There was a full breakfast, a vegi breakfast, a small breakfast, and some more combinations, with options like one or two eggs, avocado and one toast. We needed to remember how many items we were allowed to take from the "Buffet" (only 5 pieces!) and we're reminded to only take what we want to eat to prevent food waste. After ordering 2 full breakfasts and 2 small ones the "Buffet" turned out as standard English Breakfast but all 5 ingridiences separated: fried sausage, tomatoes, baked beans, bacon, mushrooms. And one could roast your own toast (each menu only 1 toast!). As foreigners we tried English breakfast once and never felt strong enough to try a second time. So we were essentially left with slices of bread we had to toast, 8 containers of jam served to our table. Don't understand us wrong, we like toast with marmalade from time to time with coffee. But for the 50 pound we paid we typically get a lot of the finest croissants, baguette, real breakfast buffets with a huge selection of all kinds of good food like eggs, meat, bacon, fruit, yoghurt, cheeses, pastry etc.pp. Just have a look into any middle class Hotel breakfast room. So we ate some toast with marmalade, got painfully stitched by one of the dozens of wasps fighting for the marmelade and left with 5 of 8 marmelade boxes untouched. So not sure what could be made better: the app ordering system adds a lot of unnecessary friction, delay and frustration to the order prozess. it it's called a breakfast buffet it shouldn't be the 5 parts of English Breakfast. That's just hilarious especially with the fency marketing and styling arround. The bakery in the center has excellent quality products like scones, baguette, bread, buns etc. The butcher has fine quality products as well. let people put some marmelade on their own dish not bring 2 boxes of marmelade to each seat you later...

Edit: the restaurant's response gives you an idea of the kind of attitudes to expect when going to this restaurant. I truly was nothing but polite - I'd be happy to admit if not. But of course it's always easiest to say the customer was rude to excuse poor service and their own staff being rude. We were treated badly from the moment our food arrived to the moment we walked out the door and my one bit of feedback worded as "it wasn't the best to be honest... unfortunately" is now me being rude?. I'm only 1 of many, many bad reviews so you'd think the establishment would want to change things up... but apparently not. And thats OK. We just won't be back or recommending to any friends and family :) and I'd recommend to anyone seeing this to take their hard earned money elsewhere :)

PS our entire table of 10 was miserable with the food and I said it would be the right thing to at least say something so that the restaurant can fix it, but it would appear that if you don't enjoy the Winking Prawn - they'd rather you just kept quiet and didn't go back.

Beautiful setting and place but shocking service and terrible food.

Prawns were unseasoned and boiled and some not cleaned properly. Bread was stale. Salmon wasn't bad. But when asked to explain why we didn't have the best experience (they asked how it was and we said "not great. Just ok") we were met with excuses and being told that we should've told them sooner and that what we were saying wasn't the case (like the bread being stale)? We really were as polite as ever, but it appears they don't actually want any feedback.

Also initially refused the extras we ordered (and paid for) because they told us we didn't order them - however after showing them the slip they were quick again to excuses and then brought us our sides (well into the meal already)

Way overpriced and really underwhelming. Perhaps lunch is different but don't bother with the dinner "BBQ". It was such a pity. We were there from halfway across the world.

Just a "so sorry", some acknowledgement, and an attempt to rectify really would've gone far - but making out as if they did nothing wrong and never had only left us with a worse taste in our mouths.

I hope the restaurant sees this and aims to improve. So much potential...

I'm not one for complaining or causing a fuss but......Today, we spent £110.00 on meals and drinks for two adults and three young children. I had the fresh mackerel with beetroot and salted cucumber salad. However, what I actually received was no beetroot, no salted cucumber, two very small pieces of mackerel, some salad leaves, two cherry tomatoes and two small chunks of cucumber......I explained this to one of the young waitresses, who did absolutely nothing about it. My son had a leather chicken and bacon baguette; the chicken was extremely dry and inedible. My wife and I ordered four prawn juice beers that came to £23.00. That's almost £6.00 per bottle; astonishing! When the ice creams came, they were missing the ordered flakes....I tried to grab the attention of the waitresses; five minutes later (having been looked at by two waitresses) a waitress came over. I explained the situation and she went to get the flakes, whilst the ice creams had to be eaten before they melted. Poor quality, poor service, overpriced. When asked if everything had been ok, I explained it hadn't and why it hadn't; again, nothing was done, so we upped and left. Certainly not what you expect from an established Salcombe eatery.

Seems like the standard response from the management: 'we think you're lying'....or 'not our fault'. Thing is, it is your fault and your responsibility to do something about it. Because of the covid restrictions, we had to pay upfront via the app and I wasn't allowed into enter the premises. If either of these things would have been different, you wouldn't have received payment from me for such an inadequate lunch, and I would have spoken to you directly about the issues. How's the 'investigation' going and what actual purpose has it served?

You received £110.00 from me for something that wasn't acceptable. Don't you feel remotely bad/guilty about this? I've brought this to your attention and you've done absolutely nothing about it. If this was a faulty goods issue, would you not want your money back or a replacement? In fact, because you've done nothing about it, I'd like my money back, please. If your restaurant was operating under covid-free circumstances, you'd have done something about it; otherwise, you wouldn't have...