The Crown Pub and Hotel — Restaurant in Tendring

So.. I came over to this town for work. I done a little bit of research and came across this pub/hotel.

Location wise, it's about a 8 minute cycle from Manningtree station. It's a lovely setting from outside, step into the restaurant at the back and it overlooks the river Stour, it's beautiful.

On arrival I had a friendly welcome, checked in and taken to my room. The rooms are a separate building from the pub. It's a only a short step from the side pub door to the rooms. As soon as I walked into the hotel building, I was blown away with how clean and pretty it was, and that was just the hallway. I was taken upstairs and lead to my room, opened the door and the place was unbelievable. A large room, king size bed, large TV on the wall, a nice chair, table to work from. There was plenty of plugs to charge appliances with. There was some fresh water already in the room, which was a nice welcome. The bathroom was really nice. a lot of care has been taken with the rooms decorating and the quality is very good.

Dinner was delicious, cooked from fresh so there was a small wait, but nothing out of the ordinary and was worth waiting (not long). I was going to have the pie, but they sold out. Instead I had the burger and chips.. I'm pleased that I went with the burger, it was so nice. Chocolate cake was lovely too. I had a very nice waitress make up some special garlic mayonnaise and that was great. For breakfast I had a full English breakfast and it was huge, again cooked fresh. Overall, a perfect stay. Great staff and a nice pub and hotel.

Although it's far away from my house, I would love to go back and chill out...

Timing and wait between ordering the food and it actually arriving at the table was poor. 2 of our party (I had prebooked the table a week in advance because we were a large group) had to wait at least 15 mins after everyone else had their food - these were the vegan/veggie options. Special requests were ignored (no mushroom/no egg were requested on several dishes, but all arrived with these items), steak was delivered without the peppercorn sauce of which had to be asked twice for. Lastly we ordered 4 desserts and waited for around 25-30 minutes with nothing coming out to us and no updates, at which point we cancelled these due to having waited for so long.

Some of the meals with skinny fries were cold when they arrived but otherwise no complaints about the food, the issue was seemingly with the service. We did get sincere apologies from several members of staff due to the wait for 2 meals, but it did seem that none of them were communicating properly between themselves.

Tables and chairs were a little cramped together also, as another reviewer has noted.

All in all not a bad visit, the good food made up...

The crown in manningtree has lovely views from the beer garden however everything else was lacking.

We were seated at a table that had definitely not been wiped despite the availability of at least six other tables, and then we waited around forty minutes for someone to take our order, no one ever came so we decided we’d have to order our food at the bar.

Note: it was not that busy.

When we got to the bar to order there were three girls just having a chat and laughing. We then went back to the table where our drinks had been placed however no one had bothered to take the menus away.

When the food came it was lackluster, to pay nearly twenty pounds for a roast dinner you would expect there to be more than three potatoes a Yorkshire pudding and a hunk of meat. Cauliflower cheese, stuffing and anything else you’d expect on a roast were extras you could add for around four pounds each. Who in their right mind would pay an extra £7.50 when they’re already paying £18.75 for an incomplete meal.

Overall, staff were inattentive, food was overpriced and I will not be returning...