1066 At The Chequers — Restaurant in South Norfolk

Initially you could be impressed by the professional looking website and so I do not understand how someone can spend so much time, money and effort creating this charming pub and then attempt to serve such atrocious food from it.

Our table of 4 ordered starters of 1 x carrot and coriander soup, 1 x ham terrine and 2 x goats cheese bruschetta. As this meal formed part of a day out to celebrate a birthday we were reluctant to complain, myself included, so I did not say anything when my starter consisted of sliced goats cheese on supermarket sliced bread with a pot of orange coloured chutney. It was all wrong but edible at least.

There were 3 main course options on offer on the day; fish pie, pork and beef meat balls or traditional Sunday roast beef. We all opted for the roast beef. You may think if a food outlet only has 3 dishes on their menu and only 2 other diners in the whole building they would be able to produce all three dishes exceedingly well, but no. We were served an afront to mankind. The plates of (and I use this word in its broadest sense) food, consisted of under cooked potatoes, which had a thin patchy, just browned skin on them. Some of which were still raw in the centre, 2 small Yorkshire puddings (I have no problem with ready made Yorkshires but don’t drench them in watery onion liquid), several slices of the toughest most over-cooked beef I have ever attempted to cut, some carrots scattered with fennel seeds and lastly some French beans. The beans were fine but It is so depressing to say the star player of the Sunday roast was a French bean.

I could not eat mine and shared my feelings on the matter with the lady who served us. She disappeared for a moment, presumably spoke with the person responsible and returned to take the plates away. She told us she would not charge us for the main course but in the same sentence said “anyway I just tried one of the potatoes and it was fine”. I thought this a strange comment to add into an indefensible position.

At this point I thought it best to just pay for our wine and starters and chalk it up to experience. Now this last part is totally my fault - I should have checked the bill. I will upload my receipt to show people if I can but drinks aside I was charged £58 for 4 small starters which works out as £14.50p per dish. I did email 1066 to give them a chance to explain why I was over-charged but no reply and no surprise.

I would like to add that it takes a lot for me to write a negative review and it was being overcharging that pushed me to this point. I’m a believer in supporting independent businesses but this cuts both ways. Customers have a right to know who deserves...

My partner and I had a voucher for afternoon tea with bottomless bubbles. At first, it all seemed nice, they were attentive to the atmosphere with nice lighting and gentle music in the background. However, after being served our first glass of prosecco and receiving the food, we finished the proseccos and the lady said she will top up the glasses when we get to the sweet foods. We thought this was strange and assumptious as we thought it would be "bottomless", not when she thinks it's time to top up. We were obviously not expecting to have lots, but in total we had 3 glasses each and the third was asked by my partner after having to stare across the restaurant to try and get her attention (despite there being only one other group of customers in the building), which the lady seemed very reluctant. She asked if we were being picked up, and at this point this made us feel uncomfortable, in which we were thinking that it's a bit deceiving advertising bottomless bubbles, yet seemingly reluctant to offer this. We felt this wasn't her business to ask if we were being picked up, especially at this point we had 2 small glasses of prosecco each, and after this we did not dare ask anything else. Throughout the afternoon tea, the nice music in the background changed to this loud TV noises in which when one of us went to the toilet, the lady was sitting on the couch watching TV. I get that they are not just going to stand there whilst we were eating, however we were waiting for a while at this point to ask if we could get a bag for the foods.

We have had a look at the other reviews, and there seems to be a trend, however the owners don't seem to take action and come across defensive. We did not make comments whilst being there due to both of us feeling uncomfortable, and we were the only customers in the building by the end. We anticipate a defensive reply and that none of our feedback will be taken on board, however we have left this review for context to other people who would consider having afternoon tea with...

If your going for a drink its a beautiful set up although they had nothing on tap so its only bottled available. They don't do the roast and just have a couple of options for children and not even on the menu. They did take the children's order first so they got theirs nice and quickly but they had completely finished eating before the adults got theirs. Which had to have taken ages at the speed the children eat. The pan fried fish was definitely oven cooked and so salty that none of the adults could stomach them and I like salt. The mixed veg side was green beans with some nuts thrown on top ... So sad because the people were lovely and the place was beautiful but the person cooking was definitely not the chef that set the menu but they are trying their best Im sure but the food seemed like what you would get at a supermarket to reheat. The best part was the beautiful fresh cut flowers...