The Red Kite — Restaurant in Wakefield

The bar itself is visually stunning, but unfortunately, the communication between the front-of-house staff, back-of-house staff, and food suppliers seems to be lacking.

We each ordered a starter and a main. The starters were nice, though my sister did mention that the calamari was quite salty – but she ate it all the same. The cheesy garlic mushrooms we had, however, were cooked beautifully. After a bit of a wait for our mains, they were finally brought to us. I had the Beef Bourguignon, which was delicious and very enjoyable, along with a side of halloumi fries, which were also lovely. My sister had the chicken burger, which she said reminded her of something from Wetherspoons, but she ate it without any complaints.

My mum ordered the speciality burger, specifically without onion. When the waitress brought it over, she even mentioned that it was "burger no onion," but to my mum's surprise, it came with onions. We also noticed that it was missing the BBQ brisket, so we spoke to a staff member, thinking they may have given us the wrong meal, as it had onion and no brisket. It turned out the onions were an error, and we were meant to be informed that there was no brisket – but the waitress hadn't been told this, as the kitchen hadn't communicated it to her. I should also mention that although I originally wanted the bacon chop, I was told they were "eaten out of house and home this weekend."

Later on, my mum decided not to continue her meal because the fries were burnt. We raised this with the waitress, who apologised and explained that it was due to supply issues and a lack of communication. However, unless the suppliers are burning the fries, I'm not sure how this excuse works – unless she was implying the original suppliers have changed and they're now using lower-quality produce but still charging high prices.

One thing I'd like to mention is that if we had paid £10 for the burger meal, we probably wouldn’t have complained, as you’d expect a simple meal for that price. But at £18.25, the meal was far too expensive for what we received. However, the management was kind enough to comp the meal after we raised our concerns. Would I return for a meal? Probably not. Would I come back for a glass of wine and perhaps some nibbles? Yes, if public transport to the area was better and I didn’t have to drive.

Overall, it’s a beautiful, visually stunning pub, but it was let down by the food. Perhaps the issues were with the burgers, as my main was lovely. Still, I wouldn't say what I received was...

What a shame, spending such a great amount for a poor experience. Myself and 5 others attended this afternoon.

Firstly took over 10 minutes to be seated however visibly clear to see 4 members of bar staff stood around talking/laughing.

Drinks order was taken the. Drinks took 20 minutes to arrive.

Staff then attended to take our order. She did this by memory and said and I quote “I’m too lazy to find my iPad” she was pleasant but remembering 10 exact orders would be hard for anyone even with cast experience in hospitality.

A massive delay in food arriving at the table, however when it did arrive it was with our mains and not our starters?? We explained this to the staff and their face spoke a thousand words due to them turning their nose up at us

Our starters came out and they were decent don’t get me wrong

Swiftly after mains arrived, firstly orders were wrong we ordered 3 x trio of meats to only receive 2. When staff were putting food on the table they dropped a dirty towel which they were using to hold the hot plates into one of our meals, no replacement nor apology.

Yorkshire pudding were missing off Sunday roasts. Which they did replace once we questioned it.

Meals were finished during the meals we ordered another round of drinks and yet didn’t receive these until we questioned staff, again several staff stood around the bar talking.

Again once meals were finished we wanted a pudding however we had no service and we had to approach the staff at the bar to ask for service and to clear the tables after several walked past

Pudding were decent but small for the price

Unfortunately a let down from a restaurant which use to have brilliant quality and service, for the price the meal and service was a let down.

I won’t be returning and you’ve lost a...

Food was hot and tasty. However, service was abysmal.

We asked for a few more minutes to decide what we wanted to eat after receiving our drinks then had to wait a further 15 minutes before a staff member came anywhere near our table so we could ask to place our order. Upon ordering we were told the trio roast and cauliflower cheese was out of stock, which was not relayed to us beforehand.

We then waited a long time for our food and part way through eating, realised we had not been given any stuffing with our turkey dinners, we waited a while until we could see a waiter then got his attention and he brought them over. After this we realised our children’s turkey and sausage roast had come without any sausage however didn’t see another member of staff to ask about this until we’d finished eating.

We then sat for a long time until we could get the attention of a staff member cleaning a nearby empty table to ask for desserts, we looked online for the menu as none had been provided. We ordered desserts and a coffee. The desserts arrived promptly however the coffee was nowhere to be seen. Once again we had to find a staff member to ask where the coffee was as we had almost finished eating our desserts, a few minutes later it arrived, after we had finished our dessert.

As we were ready to leave we once again tracked down a staff member to ask for our bill.

Wait staff were all very friendly and polite when they were around but not at all attentive to customers. All in all a very disappointing experience for a not-insignificant...