Mulberry Leaves — Restaurant in Staffordshire Moorlands

Myself, sister and brother in law went to this establishment this evening and sad to say we will NOT be going again, I ordered the mega mix grill (rare with chips and peppercorn sauce), sister ordered a normal mix grill (rare and Diane sauce) and my brother in law ordered a burger with fries. Firstly it took a LONG time to come even though it wasn’t busy at all. Literally a handful of tables in. I did over hear a lady and her child close to us ask where her sons food was because it had been over 40 mins for a pizza and she had already eaten her meal. Once our food finally came, we didn’t have any knife or forks to eat with we had to ask for them which just seemed odd. So once we finally had our meals and finally had something to eat it with we tucked in. Only to find both the rare steaks were well done and could have quite easily kept the front door open for us to walk back out. The burger was burnt and the bun soggy. The gammon steak on the normal mix grill was undercooked (raw in the middle) but the gammon steaks on the mega was literally black and burnt. The peas were two different colours which indicates a mix of old peas and fresh peas being mixed together. There was no mushrooms on either mix grill but instead of asking us what our preference was as a replacement they just put extra onion rings on. I could literally keep going. It’s not all bad, the lady with blonde curly long hair on the bar completely handled the situation so professionally. She was kind and caring and looked as if she genuinely gave a shit. So well done and thank you to her. She offered me a replacement and/or alternative. As well as a free drink. A message to the owner/management team -where were you? The kitchen was clearly in need of help and support but I couldn’t see any of you in there taking charge as you should do and leading/supporting. Clearly you need to look at staffing levels because that poor lady with blonde hair I felt bad for her, you also need to look at your training programmes and put your chef on it. I dread to think what the chef produces if it got busy. If you have more nights like this you and your staff are going to be out of jobs because clearly a business can not keep its doors open while’s giving away so much revenue and wastage. We as a party were going to demand a full refund and walk out, the only thing that kept us from doing it was the fact of how hungry we were. Start taking pride in your business and giving shit because what we have witnessed tonight you...

We have never visited this pub before, but were on holiday in the area and had driven past and the pub looked nice from the outside. We booked a table for 6pm. On arrival there was 1 member of staff at the bar. There were plates and glasses stacked up at the bar and children running wild around the building the whole time we were there. We waited for someone to greet us as is normal at a pub that takes bookings. No-one came, the woman at the bar was chatting to customers, not serving, just chatting. A man in your uniform came past and we told him we had booked a table. He looked really surprised by this, and ushered the 6 of us (5 adults, and a 12 year old) to a filthy table in the far corner. The table had food still on it from whoever sat there before, and rubbish and food under the table. We moved tables, but this table was also filthy. I wiped the table with a wet napkin and it came up black! There was "clean" cutlery on the table that was also filthy dirty, with food still on it. Giving the place the benefit of the doubt, we chose what we wanted to order and tried to order on the app via the QR code on the menu. This wasn't working, we tried 2 different phones in our party. So a couple of us of us went to the bar to order. People who arrived at the bar after us got served before us. My son is not hard to spot waiting, he's well over 6ft as was his dad who was at the bar with him. The bar staff obviously knew them as they were on first name terms and very chatty. They stood there for a few more minutes, but were ignored in favour of other customers. While I was sat at the still sticky table, a young boy who could have been no more than 12, dressed in staff uniform was clearing tables and called for "dad" to help him with something. I saw 2 members of staff in the pub. We eventually got up and left after deciding that the food would have been awful and goodness only knows the state of the kitchen if they can't clean tables or cutlery to a decent standard. Yes I know cutlery is done in a dishwasher, but people laying tables also have eyes to make sure they are clean. Basically, the place was filthy, it was like a creche for the beered up parents sitting outside in the sunshine, and it seems to run on skeleton staff with child labour. Awful place, awful experience. We will not be returning or recommending. There's a lovely Wetherspoons pub just down the road who know how to treat...

Yup, not bad. The whole experience can be described as "meh..." The serving staff are excellent; polite, cordial and good humoured. The food is essentially half-decent pub grub and is reasonably priced.

The restaurant's problem is a classic one, namely it has tried to cater for all tastes. As a result, the menu is huge and stylistically disparate. Good restaurants have a narrow menu focusing on a specific style, and they centre on what they do best. The Mulberry Leaves has a large menu that covers a wide variety of cuisines. One must ask, if a menu includes such varied dishes as tikka masala, nachos and kofte, how good can they all be? The phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none" seems appropriate.

Having said that, the food isn't too bad. It can be pragmatically be described as 'nosh' and our party of eaters went away comfortably filled.

As there were seven of us, it presented something of a challenge for the staff. They commendably attempted to serve our dishes at the same time. Unfortunately, it had a predictable result. I'd ordered a steak and requested medium-rare. My food had clearly been waiting on the hotplate for quite a long time whilst the cooks completed the other dishes. When it arrived, the steak was rather overdone and the chips were lukewarm and dry. To the restaurant staff - thank you for trying to serve our meals at the same time but sometimes it's just not possible. Better to serve hot, fresh food, even if the dishes are a few minutes apart. The puddings were excellent and generously-sized.

For potential customers, I'd recommend the pizzas as they're freshly made, including the dough. The restaurant has a dedicated section for this with a cook and an electric pizza oven. Within our group, those who ordered pizzas / calzones were the happiest. They tasted great and were a cut above the other dishes, albeit not quite at the level of a professional pizzeria with a wood oven.

To the restaurant. Thank you for feeding us. It was a pleasant evening and we appreciated it. You should continue with the pizza section + your puddings and the refillable soft drinks. My view is that the menu is too large and disparate for all the dishes to be reliably good. A smaller range of awesome offerings is always preferable to a large range of more...