Prime Steak and Grill — Restaurant in St Albans

I've been a few times for steak and always had a great experience. Great but pricey - so be prepared to dig deep. However, I'm finally getting round to reviewing having just experienced the Wellington Wednesday. The premise is, pay a fixed price of £39 each for two people and you get a beef wellington 'with all the trimmings' as the advert boasts, and a a bottle of paired red wine. As soon as I entered the restaurant, I was told by a member of staff that it would be a 40min wait for the wellington and that we should probably order some starters while we wait. Now I assumed it was 40 minutes from the time I was told. How I was wrong, it was actually 40mins after we finished our starter!!! So in actual fact, we ended up waiting 1 hour 20 mins for a Beef wellington from the time we were told it would take 40mins. I appreciate it's not a quick dish one can make like steak, but there is nothing in the advertising to indicate this and no clarification was provided on the 40min time. By the time the Wellington arrived, we had practically finished the wine which was paired for the wellington. We had no appetite to order another bottle from the sour taste left in our mouths. The reason I marked 'with all the trimmings' earlier was because that's a massive oversell. You get a bit of tenderstem broccoli, mash and a teeny tiny bit of gravy and more gravy costs £2.50 for another teeny tiny amount. While the Wellington was good, it was very stressful waiting so long for it. We were compensated (if you could call it that?) with free dessert but I can't deny the fact it was just a generally unpleasant experience for what should be one of the best restaurants in town. Sorry guys but it's a 2...

Went to Prime for the first time in a few years today to experience their date night package - £29 : steak, unlimited fries and a drink with a starter and/or dessert for an extra £5! Unfortunately while the setting was lovely, very warm and inviting, the food was a mixed bag. Our starters, the crispy squid and chicken wings were amazing which had us both looking forward to our mains! While my husband's fillet was cooked to perfection (medium rare) which he loved, my rib-eye (requested medium rare) came out looking a bit anemic in colour and when I cut into it, it was a bit too rare - more on the blue side in my opinion. When I mentioned this to the waiter, he took my plate and had it checked by another member of staff before it went to the kitchen! Unfortunately my steak was then re-seared on a hot flame and came back out tasting burnt and subsequently I didn't finish it. We order two sauces on the side - peppercorn and port and mushroom which were lovely! The fries, were very tasty but no waiter asked us if we wanted more despite unlimited being highlighted! I ordered a portion of their broccoli on the side minus the parmesan as I don't eat cheese and that came out very bland (even Nandos does better!) When the waiter took our plates he saw rib-eye left and ask if it was okay when I mentioned it tasted burnt, he response was would I like to take it home 🤣.

While £29 does sound like an appealing offer when you add in extras, like sauce (which normally comes with the steak) and sides our bill that had a service charge added to came to just under £90 (£45pp each roughly) . While I don't mind paying this when it's good food all around, this time I left rather deflated and...

Our first and VERY expensive visit, poor service, terrible (astronomical) Chateaubriand with squits to follow. We had crispy squid which were the cheap rings, tiny not particularly crispy but nice. Prawn, crab & crayfish cocktail nicely presented and tasty. A meal for 4; 8 small squares of bread (£4!), 3 starters, 4 mains, with 2 cocktails and 2 mocktails = £193 (with service automatically added!). Watch out for offered bread and steak sauces/butter which are charged extra but didn't have prices on the menu. The restaurant was empty until 12.30, but we waited a long time for the food. We were seated in full view of the kitchen and yet our main courses came whilst 3 of us were in the toilet. The Chateaubriand was blue, (cold and uncooked) yet the end pieces that looked more cooked were like shoe leather. Our female server was just rude throughout, we weren't offered childrens menus (which were offered to subsequent diners), asked us if our food was okay whilst it was untouched and disappeared when we needed to ask about the meat. We booked online for a 12noon table on Saturday and were not made to feel welcome when we arrived in the snow a couple of minutes before 12, having allowed plenty of time to get there because of the snow. Three of us gave our dessert/coffee menus back to the server deciding not to have any, my husband hadn't finished looking at the desserts menu but the server waited impatiently to take the menu from him. My husband and I have been eating white toast since, as our guts clearly objected to something we ate. West end prices without...