The Stables — Restaurant in Three Rivers

As you drive down the long, winding road that leads towards The Grove, you may be mistaken for thinking you have taken a wrong turn, as the grounds are huge and the road is long and keeps on going.

It is quite breathtaking as you get closer, especially on a bright, sunshiny day, as the main building looks large & stately, surrounded by beautiful green land.

The Stables Restaurant looks like an old stables conversion (hence the name). The vivid green of the well-kept surrounding land/ grass, as it's known for its golf course too, was picturesque in the sunshine.

As you approach, there is ample parking in their large car parks.

There are 3 different restaurants at the Grove, but today I ate in The Stables Restaurant, which is not too formal, quite bright and airy. The menu was one page, which I like, because I feel it keeps the food fresher rather than a huge menu.

I went for the special as a starter, which was described as crab Tempura with vegetables, which was served with a little side of noodles and was nice, but you only got one crab claw for your £19. For mains as it was a Sunday, my friend had the roast beef dinner, and I decided to try the chicken and leek pie, pancetta, mash, and a creamy tarragon sauce. We also had sides of mixed vegetables which came with the roast dinner & I ordered a side of broccoli.

My pie was small but packed with flavour, and the creamy tarragon sauce worked wonderfully with the mash & and vegetables, and I ate every bit! I also tried the beef, which was perfectly cooked and served with delicious gravy, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding & a side of vegetables.

We had one glass of wine each, a Rapura sauvignon blanc, Marlborough, New Zealand, which was lovely!

The bill came, with service to £60 per head.

I really enjoyed all the food, so I would give it a 9/10. The service was good, staff very attentive except at the very start, where only one of us was given a menu, and no one came back with another one. Fortunately, my friend knew what she was having quickly, so she gave me her menu to peruse.

Afterwards, we retired to the bar area, which is by The Glasshouse Restaurant (a buffet style restaurant), to have a coffee. Will definitely return again!

. . I'm a restaurant reviewer and blogger, my Instagram is: msfoodiereviewsforyou.

I'm passionate about good food and will try the restaurants and review so you dont have to waste your time or money

#foodbloggeruk #foodlover😍 #foodiegram #foodie #restaurantlover #restaurant. #chickenandleek...

Let me start by saying that my rating would be higher if the Grove didn’t charge five star prices. I’ve celebrated many an occasion at The Stables, and have been a fan and a loyal customer for many years now.

While the menu is still solid, and the quality of the food fine, sadly, while everyone is very friendly; there has been a distinct shift in the quality of service.

They are particularly old-school (they take a credit card guarantee) and unaccommodating with reservations. It is now quite hard to get through on their reservation line, and their response times to emails are quite long, so making the booking requires real effort, which is odd.

We recently had a long standing booking (I’d made it more than a month in advance) for 5 for dinner, and when I contacted them by email to increase the number to six more than a day in advance, they declined and said they were fully booked. That means they were already planning to cram us into a table not meant for 5 (tables are generally made for parties in even numbers), or they were just being unnecessarily rigid. In the end they relented and agreed to add another chair to the table.

Aside from that, when we arrived I, as well as on the previous booking, I noticed fewer servers than there had been historically, with longer waits between courses and to get drinks, and a generally far more chaotic energy to the place. There were six of us and all three courses took more than an hour each, making the dinner last more than three hours. They also don’t leave the wine bottle at the table, which meant that while waiting for food we had to chase servers for top ups on glasses. We asked if they could just leave our wine at the table and they refused. When we had leftovers at the end of the night, and asked for a doggy bag, we were told we would have to sign a contract waiving our rights to sue to the Grove in the event of food poisoning. I’ve never heard such a ridiculous proposal in all my life.

One expects an experience commensurate with the prices one pays, and I no longer feel that equation comes anywhere near adding up. What was a casually elegant place to dine now has the air of a frenetic TGI Fridays run by a team with no sense of customer service. Again, the food is faultless, and quite tasty and the menu diverse and ever changing. It’s a real shame, really.

I’m afraid my 5+ year history with this place has...

First time coming to The Stables after having heard many good things but left somewhat disappointed.

Neither food nor atmosphere are anything to ride home about unfortunately.

Extensive menu with great British classics, we ordered the beef burger with fries and a fish and chips. Food came quickly after we’d ordered it despite a fairly busy restaurant. Burger was okay, meat was quite well done (personally not the biggest fan) and fries were rather dry and hard. Fish and chips was okay. Portion sizes were both generous. Service was friendly and quick, initially they forgot to bring the water we had ordered and Inwasnt the biggest fan that the waitress would but the glasses down on the tables grabbing them from the top basically touching it where I’d put my lips (again, personally not a fan and might not bother other people). Now to the atmosphere… It was relatively busy and therefore quite noisy, there were multiple birthdays and a few families with young children but all in all okay. However, one child was incredibly loud by firstly hitting the pepper mill on the table and afterwards a small metal bowl. It was loud to the degree that the majority of the guests turned their heads as the mother didn’t care at all and the kid continuously hitting the bowl on the table. Half a meal had also ended up under the table. Some of the staff members rolled their eyes but nobody said anything. I got no problem with kids at all but that was just disrespectful towards everyone in the restaurant and I’m surprised management didn’t say anything.

Overall I wouldn’t return to the restaurant, it was not worth the money and unfortunately the atmosphere (even though I’m sure it’s just a one off) was quite off putting. We might want to try the ‘Feast on...