LasChicas — Restaurant in Vale of White Horse

Edit following owners response. We were not rude, derogatory or aggressive, we in fact apologized to the poor couple on the next table for disturbing their meal, they were lovely and asked if we knew the area as they could recommend somewhere else. I have visited once before in October 2021 and didn’t ever comment about the food or service! Looking through other replies and speaking to many local people, the lack of customer service and poor behaviour seems to be a common theme!

Can’t comment on the food as we didn’t stay long enough to find out, I’m sure it’s lovely if you can put up with the rude and unfriendly staff! I had booked the table as friends coming to stay and they always loved the previous Tapas restaurant in Faringdon. We arrived to an almost empty restaurant at 8 pm (one other couple in there, with another just leaving) and were greeted with “have you booked” rather than a warm welcome! Taken to table and before we’d sat down asked if we had any allergies, to which one of my friends informed waitress she couldn’t eat prawns . Before even taking drink order a form was brought over for her to sign (disclaimer I presume!) my friend ordered a cocktail and asked for a straw to which she was told she had to pay for it but could take it home with her The wine was lukewarm. We asked the waitress if she could please change it to be told that they couldn’t as it was open so we politely asked to speak to manager. A few minutes later, someone emerged fro mine kitchen, throwing a T towel on the bar and asked us what the problem was and we explained again! She argued and said the wine was cold and the bottle was cold! Obviously it was as it was in a wine bucket with ice. She then had what we can only describe as a temper tantrum and said oh well I will throw it in the bin then!!! By this time we’d had enough so left, offered to pay for bread and olives but yes again this was followed by another tantrum and we were told she couldn’t deal with this!!!! Maybe this behavior explains why the restaurant was near on empty on a Saturday night. ! We are 3 professional, middle aged women and are still gobsmacked at what happened!!! I would not wish misfortune on anyone but would suggest that kindness and politeness is needed if this business is to succeed!! On a positive note we left and went to the local Indian restaurant which was very busy and were greeted. By such lovely, welcoming staff and the...

I wouldn’t recommend visiting here. I was looking forward to going given the excellent reviews, but based on our experience, I would guess many are self-created and so misleading.

Food was mediocre at best. Service was terrible. The young waiters were polite and doing their best, but slow and forgetful. The owner was outright rude and unpleasant. And both lied about things they’d told us, which was just bizarre.

Food was greasy and lacked flavour. The meat was dry and chewy. The wine poor.

We received one plate which was inedible, so after a small taste, we returned it. When it was still on the bill, we asked for it to be taken off, but were told as we’d tried it, they wouldn’t remove it. We queried how we’d have known if it was any good without trying, but the owner was incredibly rude, to the point of being aggressive. This wasn’t how we wanted to end our night, so we said we’d pay for it. However, halfway through taking payment she literally threw our money back at us and told us she didn’t want our money. Astounded, we turned to leave, only to hear her tell the next customers that we’d refused to pay! So odd.

The also told us, as we ordered our food, that they’d need our table back in 20 minutes. Baffled, as the restaurant was half empty, we wondered why they hadn’t mentioned it before. Another young waiter then outright lied and said he had told us when we were first seated (he absolutely hadn’t). This was no big deal, he obviously felt uncomfortable (and probably worried about the reaction of his aggressive boss) but we then didn’t know what to do. We offered to move tables. But no one returned so we ate our food and no other customers turned up. All very strange.

I was really ready to love this place. But it is truly awful....

[Edit: for complete clarity given the owners response - the "vegetarian/vegan" menu does include non-labelled meat products, the staff don't ask about allergies or in tolerances - the owner did say she had tried to train her staff - but they didn't ask us or check anything even when we were clearly only ordering from the vegetarian menu. And I did have to pay for the whole meal, including the meat I hadn't wanted]

45 years meat free... Gone..... I feel physically sick. Emotionally distraught. I ended up crying in the restaurant.

The vegetarian/vegan side of the menu (1 page a4, one side dedicated to vegetarian /vegan) included a vegan chorizo and also a lentil stew which you could add chorizo to. Apparently that chorizo is actual meat chorizo. The staff did not ask about allergies, didn't question why people ordering off the vegetarian menu would want meat.... No clarification...

The apologies were vague and the manager blamed her staff saying she had trained them in asking about allergies and understanding customer needs like lifestyle choices. So, apparently it's their fault that my decades of not eating meat have been ended. Not a business culture of poor staff support and poor quality and poor customer service.

Whilst my choice is not to eat animals I do have a reaction to eating meat... Its why my mum stopped trying to feed it me it when I was a baby ... I'm currently waiting for when I throw up....

And no they didn't offer any reduction in what we had to...