Totally Delicious - Trentham Gardens (Tea Room) — Restaurant in Stafford

Today myself and a friend visited the cafe inside the gardens after walking the lake. We regularly visit here and always have our dogs with us. When we arrived we sat outside. After ordering our food and drinks we made the decision to go inside as it was quite cool. We walked in and sat down. My dog (who has been inside the cafe many many times) barked a few times at another dog on another table. We were sat down for probably around one minute when a member of staff approached us and in the most rude manner he asked us to move because my dog had barked. He said that he had to consider his other customers and we needed to move. His tone was rude, condescending and totally unnecessary. Myself and my friend decided to go back out side. The man and another waitress brought our drinks and food out. I explained to the said man that had he given us more than a minute my dog would have settled down and been fine. I also told him that his manner was rude to which he clearly didn’t care and accused my dog of not being well behaved. He didn’t make any attempt at apologising and went back inside where he kept glaring at us. We ate our now cold food. Another lady came out who claimed she was the manager (the man had also made this claim). We explained that we were not happy with the service we had received from the man. She also stated that the dog needed to be moved…I asked her why my dog and not the other ladies dog who had also barked. I asked if I had had a toddler or a baby with me who had cried, would I also have asked to move. The lady said no!! She apologised for the manner in which the man had handled it but didn’t offer to replace the cold food or any other form of compensation as to how we were treated. So after visiting the cafe for many many years I will not be returning and would suggest to anyone who has a dog, please to careful entering with them. If they make any sort of noise then it won’t be...

Me and my partner went here the other day for afternoon tea because my sister in law got us gift vouchers. Because we had the gift vouchers we had to email rather than just book through the website but it was still an easy process and they were quick in response. Overall the afternoon tea was nice enough, they were ready for us on arrival even though we were 15 minutes early, the selection of sandwiches and cakes were nice just not the best I've tasted. I will also point out that I have a nut allergy and alerted them of this when we made the booking and they were very accommodating and made sure nothing on the afternoon tea contained nuts and was prepped in an area free from nuts so that was greatly appreciated. The reasons for the middle of the road review were for the following reasons. On the victoria sponge there was a raspberry and when my partner went to eat hers she noticed mold in the middle of it (see picture). We notified a member of staff and they apologised and told the chef and that was an end of it. It's an easy thing to miss in my opinion but I have to let it be known that we were technically served food with mold. Another downside is that because the afternoon tea is within trentham gardens itself you are forced to pay the entry fee into the gardens. A nice £13 per person. Now the gardens are lovely and well worth going round but on a day like ours when the weather wasn't really good weather for walking round in, its an added expense that you need to be aware of when you're already paying £27.50 each for an afternoon tea. So because of how ok the food was and how ok the service was I'd have to say when you consider we in theory paid over £40 per person for the afternoon tea I expected a bit more. I would suggest to probably avoid going for afternoon tea here and just going for lunch before or after a walk around...

Terrible, will not eat here again. Food terrible and service poor. We ordered four lobby dishes (a soup-y meat and root veg stew). They arrived cold, not even lukewarm but cold. Sent them back and they came back soon after just barely hot but we couldn't be bothered to send them back to be reheated for a second time.

Four bowls of stew - we were given no spoons. When we asked for spoons, our table staff returned with one spoon between the four of us. When we asked if we could get some more there was no apology and no epiphany, just a look as if we were being unreasonable.

The lobby itself was massively over salted, and the beef was tough as owd boots. Not been cooked well at all. And the portion size was tiny - I could count four bit of beer, two bits of parsnip, and three bits of carrot. All for near enough £9.

A couple of other guests had cheese and ham panini. Half the panini was untouched by cheese OR ham on one of then, the other also really lacking in cheese.

No one seemed to be responsible for our table since we had multiple different serving staff (maybe hence getting four stews and zero spoons). Very young staff but the fault lies with the manager for not giving any structure or guidance on how to serve - wasn't even clear if there was a manager about, there didn't appear to be.

Kids fish finger dish was fine (decent portion for the price), except the menu mentions five options for sides yet when I went to order they told me three were unavailable and only chips and beans were in stock. All good and well advertising healthy options (peas, cucumber and carrot sticks) but if they're not available it's pointless.

All in all a massive waste of our time and money and we still left hungry. Would not return here again. Next time we'll plan ahead and book into Willow for...