Basil — Restaurant in Tunbridge Wells

Arrived at Basil to find a sign asking all customers to wear a mask (which all the customers were). However no staff were wearing their masks. I got to the till and a young staff member went running out to greet a dog at the front of the shop, meanwhile a queue was building. Eventually another staff member asked to take my order, for 2 hot drinks & 2 pieces of cake the bill came to £14.60! I was asked to wait at the end of the desk for my order. The girl who had greeted the dog had by this point returned, I hadn't seen her wash her hands & she was slicing the cake with no gloves on. She brought them over to the end of the desk where I was waiting, stared blankly at me & asked what I was waiting for. I said I'd been asked to wait there for my order, she grunted & rolled her eyes as she walked off... I then had to make two trips bringing my order to the table. I don't have an issue paying for good quality products but the cake was stale & the customer service appalling! Also just a suggestion, if you're going to have a rule that everyone should wear a mask you should think about showing your staff how to...

The Saturday before Christmas was busy but managed to find a table. The staff were good at finding tables and chairs for people. Unlike the Tonbridge one it seems they do table service. I chose the Christmas sausage roll and the sweet potato chick pea salad. The roll was nice and flaky but not as tasty as a normal sausage one. However the salad was lovely. It doesn't look that attractive but it was very tasty. I've never eaten the skin of a butternut squash but the pieces in the salad were beautiful roasted and soft. It seemed this was the most popular salad as I saw several others go for it and I'd certainly...

Honestly, 5 Stars just isn't enough for this place. Surrounded by high street coffee and sandwich chains it would be easy not to look around the corner and take the 10 extra steps to experience proper service from friendly staff, excellent coffee and the most amazing selection of salads and lite bites. Whatever you do make sure you have a slice of cake too and if you're too full take it home with you. Believe me in a life full of cake eating the blueberry, hazelnut and honey slice just smashed it's way to a top 5 position - it was so good we couldn't resist going back later in the day for...