The Fox and Vivian — Restaurant in Warwick

Visited the fox and Vivian over the weekend for what the locals say is the best steak restaurant around.

So I was excited to see what it was all about, firstly no starters?! Kinda weird concept not to really have any dedicated starters but oh well.

I ordered a 12oz NY strip steak or also known as a sirloin or porterhouse steak. Ordered with side of Parmesan and truffle fries and chimichurri.

Steaks come with tender steam and mushroom, but also ordered some popcorn shrimp as a side and others also ordered prawns and onion rings which I also tried.

Overview, really well cooked steak, mid rare very nice sear across the steak, but not rested long enough for my liking if I’m being picky, also overall the flavour profile was pretty bland and not much depth to steak, probably wasn’t prepped correctly for maximum flavour / resting for correct period. But it certainly was not worst steak I’ve had, very good cut of meat, quality produce.

The fries were ok nothing to shout about, and sadly the veg on the plate was stone cold and bland also.

The sides were decent, popcorn shrimp tasty and fried perfectly, homemade style onion rings with plenty of flavour too, and king prawns were very nice juicy and flavourful.

I ordered chimichurri sauce, again sadly pretty bland lacked acidity and punch.

Plenty of pros - quality produce, good selection of meats, competitive menu and edgy atmosphere.

Would like to come back to retry it again and give a review update as I’m sure they are better than what i experienced on this visit.

Overall...

Yesterday, 5 December, I phoned and made a reservation with you. Your staff member asked me for what time, and how many. I told him for 8 PM, two people. No problem, he said, took my name, and said all was good for an 8 PM booking.

I have lived for many years in Leamington, but never eaten at your place. I saw some nice comments about it recently on one of the local online groups, so decided to give it a try.

WHAT A MISTAKE!

We arrived on time, the place was moderately busy but not crowded, and after attracting the attention of two female staff in heavy conversation at the far end of the room, we were seated, drink orders taken, and the menus provided. We chose from it, waited 15 minutes, and then managed to get someone to come and take our order. Two NY Strips plus various extras.

We then waited. And waited. After a further 45 minutes, at 9 PM, we persuaded one of your staff girls to come to the table. She said they were busy and it would be another 20 minutes. We told her to cancel our order, because we were leaving. We paid for our drinks, I told the girl firmly but politely ,of our disgust, and that I would be in touch both with the management and on social media. No apology was offered. We left, our evening totally ruined.

Frankly, in all my long life I have only walked out of a restaurant a couple of times. Your treatment of two new, local customers interested in your much-touted restaurant was simply...

I can’t complain about the food whatsoever, it was gorgeous. But the customer service was shocking. Having to ask multiple times for items, like the wine list, then having to find someone to come over and take our order for wine, no wine glasses after asking 5-6 times, they finally arrived around 25 minutes after the wine was delivered. We couldn’t eat our food when it arrived, as we had no forks, they had been taken after our starters, we asked multiple times before it arrived and had to ask again when it arrived for some and it took them ages to bring them over. Everything seemed to be a hassle for the staff, especially one girl who kept rolling her eyes, never apologised for the wait and didn’t break a smile once, Her attitude was like a teenager having a strop, with answers like yeah, shrugging her shoulders, no manners whatsoever, she was extremely rude, she really shouldn’t be in customer facing role, if she can’t at least smile at the customers. It such a shame as the food was amazing, it completely ruined my husband’s birthday. We definitely won’t...