The Moat — Restaurant in Tonbridge and Malling

So let me just post our experience here. It has a lovely garden, seating, trees and menu choice ..

We booked on a hot Saturday night. They had live music, which was good and we sat outside in the beer garden booked at 6pm ~ early so we could enjoy the whole night at our own pace. This was the first problem .. as they didn’t like that.

It was hot so we wanted to start with a iced lime and soda and fresh water. Immediately we were asked ‘are you eating?’ We said we literally just sat & had nt even looked at the menu. We said “we were eating, but over the whole night, we don’t like to eat quickly, that’s why we booked at 6pm, is that ok? ”

So after our soda we ordered olives and cocktails. About a dozen olives arrived for £5. We were asked again about food. We said again, “well we want a pate and Korean wings, but after we’ve had our cocktails, we’re taking our time tonight ” ..

10 mins later our cocktails arrived. After 2 mins our starters arrived ! I was now annoyed. I got up & went inside and politely said, “we’ve explained TWICE, we don’t want to be rushed, but you’ve given us cocktails WITH our starters”. He said he had misunderstood (?!) a total lie.. We’d explained twice !

The wings had so much sauce drenched over them, you couldn’t taste the chicken. They had only paper napkins, no hot towels, so we asked for a finger bowl. My pâté was lovely. Now we were served by an older blonde lady who literally never spoke to us. Rude frankly. She plopped down our mains & wine that we ordered later & just walked off.

My kofte main was nice, but the bulgar wheat side dish was just a congealed blob, no separate grains & they put coleslaw on top! The cod/chips was lovely. There were a few wasps around buzzing our empties. Nobody cleared our plates for ages. They just kept walking past. The staff never catch your eye. Deliberately we thought, because of earlier. We distinctly were given a cold shoulder, just because we’d asked to eat slowly and they didn’t like it.

When I finally had to ask to have our table cleared, grumpy old blonde just took the plates, said nothing when I said “thank you” .. same when we asked for a bill, same as we paid nothing. Just silence. Awful customer service.

We were made to feel ‘wrong’ simply because we’d asked to eat slowly over the whole night and after we had to politely complain, they ignored us. What a way to treat your customers ! Rather than say ‘ oh yes it’s a lovely summer nite and we have live music, sit back and enjoy a cocktail or two, just catch my eye when you need me, ‘.

It’s OUR RIGHT to eat as we wish. It’s perfectly acceptable to have a cooling soda, then a cocktail or two with olives, or breads, before starters, then maybe a glass of wine with your mains.

Final bill £124 including tip they include ASSUMING they deserve it. Final note, we were told ‘old grumpy blonde’ arrived there from their sister pub, after people complained there too about her attitude...

My husband and I drove quite a distance to get to the Moat, to meet up with a friend that we don't get to see very often. A most disappointing experience, we definitely won't be returning. We were sat in the very pretty garden as the restaurant was fully booked.

Getting the attention of the staff for food and drinks was a total nightmare! But we got there in the end. Then a huge amount of smoke started coming out of a large chimney from part of their kitchen, on a constant flow with no let up. Our friend is disabled, with an array of breathing and lung problems, he is on full time oxygen machines. My husband eventually went inside and pleaded with the staff to find a table inside or we would have to cancel the food order and leave. Miraculously, they found a table for us. But by now, our hair, clothes etc, all smelled of smoke, and our friend's breathing was almost an ambulance situation! I washed my hair that morning, I wash it twice a week. I washed my hair again this morning as it still reeked of smoke, an inconvenience I could have done without!

Then things took another downward turn. The food arrived. My husband ordered the burger and fries. The burger was underwhelming and the chef decided to cover the fries with salt after dishing up this meal. There is salt on the tables, surely it isn't the chef's decision on whether a person would like to cover a meal in salt?? This meal was definitely not great.

I ordered the Grilled Tandoori Paneer Salad, with the Tandoori Grilled Chicken upgrade. The salad came with SO much dressing that I felt like I was eating a salad soup and there was no chicken. The waitress took the food away to get the chicken added, then whilst she was gone, a small plate with a sorry looking piece of chicken on it turned up. Then the salad came back unchanged. The chicken wasn't supposed to be a side dish, it was an upgrade to the salad. This 'upgrade' was £5!!! I felt like this would be more of an IKEA salad, you have to put it together yourself! Not happy! They refunded this shambles of a meal in full.

Our friend ordered the Chicken Caesar Salad without the anchovies. He couldn't eat this meal at all, none of it. It was SO salty! We all tried it, and we all found it to be overwhelmingly salty, inedible. This inedible meal was also refunded in full.

Overpriced, with a salt obsessed chef. As I said, we won't be returning. Very disappointing, we had high...

We cannot recommend The Moat enough....the truly pulled off the most incredible wedding for us. From our first visit, through all the planning and the day itself we had exemplary service, care, warmth and organisation. They made everything so easy, were willing to go above and beyond and put us at ease.

Special shout out to our coordinator on the day, Amy. When we arrived the day before to drop off our stuff she was so knowledgeable, helpful and calm as well as bringing such a positive vibe. All our family and guests commented on how wonderful she was.

The space is just so beautiful and all the facilities (including the hotel rooms) are top notch. The food was particularly spectacular, we had the family style service and everything was delicious, hot and plentiful.

The team at The Moat liaise with all your vendors and make everything so easy including the registrar people, band, photographer etc.

It's the perfect venue if you want somewhere that's going to make planning straightforward but at the same time not feel like it's just a cookie cutter wedding venue that pumps out weddings on repeat. The place is somewhere we'll always go back to as a pub for years to come and it's got a lot of character and charm. It was also comparably great value, wedding prices are usually extortionate but I think their rates are very fair.

We had the best day of our lives and highly highly recommend The Moat to anyone looking for a venue...