The Wargrave Hacienda — Restaurant in St Helens

We were excited to come here after reading all the positive reviews. Unfortunately, we were quite disappointed with our visit.

The restaurant was fairly quiet. It had an open kitchen which we liked and the decor was nice.

My wife ordered the Chicken Enchiladas, and I ordered the Meatballs in the "Red hot sauce". We ordered Mexican rice with the meals, but was then told that they had ran out of this and we accepted chips instead. (This was 7pm on a Saturday night in a relatively quiet restaurant. Not too sure how you could run out of rice).

My wife's food arrived in a reasonable time (about 10 mins), but disappointingly, my meatballs didn't arrive for another 5 - 10 mins which was quite poor.

When the meatballs did eventually arrive, I was quite dismayed as to what I got for the £14 or so that was charged. There was just 4 small meatballs in a sauce with a bit of cheese on it and accompanied by a relatively small portion of chips. The sauce had no real heat and certainly didn't match the description of "Red Hot".

When we finished our meals, the chef did visit our table which we thought was nice and we did explain our disappointment to him in the poor value for the meatballs and the lack of heat in the sauce. We also said that the Enchiladas were fine. He said he could make the sauce hotter next time, but to be fair if it's advertised as "Red Hot" it should be. The bigger disappointment was the quantity. 4 small meatballs for £14 was just shocking. (Photo attached)

I think if the chef invited us back to give the place another try as this could be a one off, we may have took him up on this and give the place the benefit of doubt, but no offer to make amends was made.

I would have liked to have raved about this place as I like to support local restaurants and indeed, there are some great reviews, but alas for us, it just didn't happen. Lots of room for...

Our experience as a family was quite disappointing. We were the only family dining. We ordered our starters to come with the kids meals. The starters took an hour to get to us and only one kids meal out of 3 was delivered. We had no explanation or apology from our waitress who seemed nice. One adult meal came straight after the starters. It took another 25mins for the two kids meals and the last adult meal to arrive. Steal no apology. Some items were meeting from the order so we had to get the chef's attention seeing as the waitress was no were to be seen. The chefs seemed preoccupied with the football match that was on TV. Overall the experience was dire and to even compare it to the Mexican experience?? I understand that the recipes may have been adapted for British experiences but a little authenticity could benefit the Hacienda. It's safe to say we won't be visiting this place ever again. It's such a shame because we went there based on other reviews, unfortunately my review is based on my experience. It was uncomfortable to...

What a lovely restaurant! We booked in as we fancied Mexican food. So the restaurant is located at the side of the pub, you go through the pub to the right and you are transported into a contemporary Mexican restaurant with an open view kitchen with fab Mexican music playing. We loved the decoration. We had free nibbles of nachos, refried beans, pickled spicy onion, pickled veggies and 2 dips. Starters. We shared a quesadillia cheese with chorizo. Mains, I had birra tacos with rice salad and birra broth. Hubby had birra with chips, salad and tortillas. It was absolutely delicious, ultra tasty. The service was fantastic, we were made to feel very welcome. Had we not polished off the freebie nachos, I would have eaten more. So reasonably priced as well. We both agreed the food was definitely tastier than the Mexican food we had eaten in Mexico! We will definitely return, this restaurant is a...