Christopher's British Bistro - Restaurant — Restaurant in Tamworth

We ordered drinks and the server asked if we wanted to set up a tab and pay at the end with the bill, we said yes. After delivering our drinks, the server came back over and said we couldn’t have a tab as she had spoken to her manager and “some people looked unscrupulous” so we had to pay for the drinks there and then.

The starters and mains arrived and it was not amazing but ok. Amongst our desserts, we had two bread and butter puddings on the order and I said the one with custard is for one person and the one with ice cream is for another. The server said that both were with custard, I said that one was ordered with ice cream. She said she would have to go back and check, I said that I know because I ordered it via email, I added in “with ice cream” in bold on the order spreadsheet and it is my dessert so I’m fairly sure it is accurate. She said she still had to go and check!! She arrived back 5 minutes later with another with ice cream without a word of apology or any acknowledgement at all.

One of our party is gluten free and phoned ahead before booking to ensure this could be catered for and confirmed they could but to be sure I added GLUTEN FREE on the party’s order form in bold on the order. We clarified that their meal was gluten free to be told yes. Five mins later they had a reaction and had to run to the toilet to be sick! The manager called them over once they had stopped being sick to take their details and advised that nothing they were given had gluten in but that they didn’t specifically say they had Coeliac disease so it’s not their fault really. We said that it doesn’t matter as they specifically were asked to cater for a gluten free dietary requirement. The manager then called me over as the organiser to say that I didn’t say the word Coeliac, I asked what difference it would have made and she said “none, they’re the same thing!”. The manager said they “will be investigating further with the kitchen but couldn’t tonight as they had gone home, but you still should have said the word Coeliac!”.

I then went to ask for the bill and asked them to print the bill so we could split it. The manager said they had split out everyone on the computer and people could pay separately there. The first few paid and said their goodbyes, the remaining few couples went and paid and then there was only myself & my wife. They asked me to pay an amount that was clearly wrong. They said that there is something wrong and there was still a lot left on the bill. Cue a 30 min wait whilst the person behind the bar and the manager frantically trying figure out what has gone wrong and what happened – they just kept saying that this never happens and the computer has made a mistake. The manager said “we don’t normally do it like this, usually people sort it themselves at the table”, I said that is exactly what I had asked to do and you said you had already sorted it and people could pay separately. They said do I just want to pay the amount outstanding and I can sort it out myself later. I said how can I do that when I have no idea what people have already paid and it is your error, not ours! They then started asking people what amount they had paid? We said we weren’t sure we just tapped our card when asked so our party members had to trawl through their banking apps to give them an amount for them to match up with a till receipt from earlier. They could then try and work out how much people had paid and charge the difference. After another 20 mins or so, the couples that were left paid the underpaid amounts and left and that left me who had to pay the bill for myself and the 3 couples that had already left (nearly an hour ago) and had to ask them to reimburse me afterwards. At this point I just wanted to pay whatever it took for me to leave!

Overall – the level of service received was absolutely shocking, the staff were rude, customer service was none existent and ruined my wife’s birthday meal. We were going to go for a drink elsewhere after the meal but in the end we went home due to the anger we felt at...

We always pass this pretty looking place on our way to grocery shopping and thought today we'd drop in for a bite to eat. Just having missed breakfast service (11:30ish) we stopped for a spot of lunch. The staff were welcoming and friendly going out of the way to make use and our toddler feel welcome.

Reasnobley priced (meal for toddler, 2 adults and a glas of wine and a coke) coming to just over £45.00. The atmophere was welcoming and the wine was good. Despite being opposite a bus depot it does a good job at creatign the air of a bistro in a none ideal place!

The only disappointment with this place was it's lack of baby changing facilites, high chairs and nappy bins. Even though this may not be a regualr choice for people with children they provided us with a toddler size portion of chicken strips (without sauce), tiny person cutlery and a welcoming approach.

I feel like I should start a blog called 'I want to eat somewhere nice with my toddler' and rate places like this. Despite not being set up for toddlers with a few personal twealks they aimed to meet our needs well.

The cod in buttered sauce was tasty, with a wide variety of vegtables which was nice to see on a side.

If only they had a baby change & a car park (car park near by but you have to pay) I'd give it a 5...

Went for a meal with friends and was a little disappointed with both the service and food. The staff were all very friendly however, didn't seem to be on the ball. It wasn't extremely busy however struggled to get their attention. Had to wait quite a bit for drinks despite there being a few standing on the bar at any given time. Food generally was ok but for the price of the food, would expect much better quality. Two of us ordered the Panko lamb which we couldn't eat. It was like deep fried lamb in breadcrumbs and very very tough. We let a member of staff know that we couldn't eat it and she said the lady in charge would be over to speak to us. After 3 times of asking someone to speak to us (we were on puddings at this stage) we were then questioned as to why we hadn't brought this to their attention sooner so that the chef could have tried the food, to which I explained we had been asking all night. Then we were told that the member of staff who initially dealt with us was new, so the meals were then removed from our bill. Overall, this is a nice clean establishment but we felt that the staff were extremely slow and it lacked ambience. A few tweaks and this could be a fabulous place. Tamworth hasn't got many decent places to eat, so I do hope that this was just...