Viceroy Restaurant Stafford — Restaurant in Stafford

A lot of promise, with an interesting menu and a nicely decorated restaurant, but let down massively by a number of issues.

Most of the staff we encountered didn't seem to know what they were doing, and didn't speak or understand English well. We had booked in advance but they didn't appear to have a table set up ready, and we had to wait a while to be seated, not the end of the world, but the table we were put on felt a bit squashed in and hadn't been laid properly.

Overall the meal took hours. To be fair the restaurant was reasonably busy, but there didn't seem to be any management going on to ensure that things were coming out in a timely and well paced manner (like managing when orders were taken from different tables etc) so some courses or drinks came quickly together then there would be a huge gap before the next course.

We ordered a couple of bottles of wine and it was like they'd never handled wine before. It took ages to arrive, they eventually bought one bottle but we had to ask them a couple of times for the other and they really seemed just a bit confused with it all. They seemed to really struggle to understand how many glasses we needed - our table of 5 had only been laid with 2 glasses initially - and it took several attempts of going back and forth before they finally managed to get all 5 of us a glass - didn't seem like rocket science but it was mildly entertaining at least!

We repeatedly had to ask for the tap water we'd ordered (a common problem in lots of restaurants actually - I don't know why they struggle with it so much!) and when they bought it (in a jug) they poured one glass for one person and walked off again (with the jug). When we managed to get their attention again we had to clarify that we wanted it for the table (as we'd asked), and were told that they couldn't leave the jug (no idea why - we saw them leave a jug on another table) but off he went to get more glasses for us all which took a while again and he poured us all individual glasses. Again, all quite entertaining in some ways but also annoying and thirst inducing.

On the positive side, both the white and red wines that we had were very nice - the meal took so long that we ended up ordering more over the course of the evening but at least they were enjoyable.

Also on the plus side, the poppadums' and pickles (which to be fair arrived very quickly - well before any drinks though) were very nice and the starters when they arrived were also generally pretty good.

The mains were a mixed bag, they were all different dishes from the chef specials, a mix of chicken and lamb dishes. A couple of the dishes were fairly nice but one was just watery and a bit tasteless, and one of the others tasted somehow a bit stale. Overall a bit disappointing. There are far better curries to be had around Stafford.

There were some touches that could have elevated things such as a nice unexpected sorbet between courses and and small sweet yoghurt thing after the meal, but these were a missed opportunity as they were pretty much just plonked on the table in front of us with no explanation of what they were - it's like they've seen programmes on TV about fine dining restaurants so they've tried to emulate it but they've never actually been to one or understood the things that make the difference.

In isolation none of the things that weren't so good would have been terrible, some of it was entertaining, but all combined overall it didn't make for great experience.

If they take the time to work on things and train their staff better then maybe one day we'll return as there was promise, but for now I certainly wouldn't rush to go back as there are far better places in the area with massively better service and far more consistent and superior...

Dissappointed to be so dissappointed. I booked at the Viceroy for a significant birthday family meal because I've always been impressed by the menu and service previously experienced there. I hate to leave a negative review but some things sadly need to be said. As the organiser I spent the whole evening feeling increasingly stressed and upset. We were a large party admittedly but that is for the venue to factor in. I had to continually ask for everything, for drinks orders and food orders to be taken etc. The food arrived approximately 1.5 hours after ordering and we had to continually ask when it would be ready as we had children in the party and it was getting very late for them to eat and some family members had a 2 hour journey home. When the food arrived it was extremely staggered so we didn't eat together. 2 children's courses arrived last at least 10 minutes after everyone else's. I approached the manager following this to put across my dismay. His response was that they were very busy with the rest of the restaurant and their take away service. This is not relevant I feel, they had advance notice of our booking and it is their responsibility to manage this. We were offered a discount of around 10% of the bill. I am not happy to be leaving this review, I have been so impressed previously but feel the Viceroy may be become a victim of its own success if it doesn't manage its popularity well and starts to fail to meet expectations. I have organised large family meals previously with other venues where everything has been organised for me taking the responsibility out of my hands so I myself could enjoy the occasion, this is probably now a high benchmark but this is the level of service that I feel meets and exceeds expectations to ensure ongoing success. I hope these comments can prove constructive as I'd love to return and be...

This review is based on a takeaway/delivery order,

Firstly FYI, i never write reviews and never complain if i have a bad meal or service, i normally just don’t bother returning to the restaurant, but this takeaway was so bad i want people to avoid making the same mistake i did and save yourself the money.

After looking at the menu, me, my partner and friend liked the sound of a lot of dishes, so we ordered various starters and mains, at which point the bill came to £60 so we thought we’d stop there.

Placed ordered at 18:55pm for 20:00pm, the food arrived around 20:30pm. At which point it was cold, and i live less than a mile away.

We opened all the tubs and couldn’t believe the state of all the food. All the portions were small, which id accept on the starters (£4-£4.50 each), but the curry’s had next to no chicken in them, and also ordered the Chicken Tikka Main, which came and was 6 tiny pieces of dry overcooked chicken with no taste what so ever. Also the keema naan and peshwari naan had nothing in them, no meat or coconut, both just plain.

Main mention to the ‘Hash De Modu’, sounds amazing but was 3 tiny pieces of duck with a few sesame seeds on

Ive tried contacting the restaurant just the express how disappointed we were but had no response back. Avoid at all costs and take your...