Holly Blue — Restaurant in Wealden

UPDATE - Contacted the email below as advised, last response from Olly was 25/03 - nothing since! Given that 2 out of the 5 in the party had food poisoning from this food (exact same meal) and it was highlighted to Olly and EH, it's shocking that he hasn't even bothered to investigate this!

I’m writing this review to express my extreme disappointment with the experience my party had at The Holly Blue on 22/03/2025. We were a group of five, with three of us ordering the carvery and two opting for burgers, and unfortunately, our visit was marred by a series of issues that severely impacted our experience.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by an assistant manager who seated us. However, when we went to the bar to order, we found the carvery food to be unappetizing, with dry vegetables that were stuck to the cast iron dishes. The peas, in particular, were so dry they had turned white. We raised this concern with the assistant manager, who seemed more interested in checking with the chef about whether they should be refreshed rather than addressing the issue directly.

Despite assurances that fresh vegetables would be brought out, we were disappointed to see dirty lids being used and mismatched lids placed on dishes, which raised significant hygiene and allergy concerns. When our carveries arrived, they were barely edible. The vegetables were mostly dry or overcooked, the stuffing was so hard it could have been used as building material, and the mashed potatoes were crusted from sitting out too long. Worse still, we were given only a single thin slice of meat, and the chef placed old, dry cuttings on the plate with it. The cauliflower cheese was welded to the edge of the dish, with only two pieces of cauliflower, and the whole presentation was appalling.

The burgers we ordered also left much to be desired. The bacon that was supposed to be ‘crispy’ was anything but, and completely inedible. Additionally, the drinks we ordered, a lemonade and Pepsi, were flat, and the Pepsi didn’t even have ice.

When we expressed our concerns, the assistant manager’s response was dismissive and unprofessional. He claimed that the portion of meat we received was bigger than it appeared, and when we asked to speak with another manager, we encountered a combative attitude. The female assistant manager insisted the portion size was “standard” and belittled our concerns. Her response to the state of the food was, “You can see there’s a full main menu there, you should’ve just ordered off of that,” which was completely unacceptable.

The lack of professionalism and customer care was shocking. When we asked for a complaints email, both managers rolled their eyes and dismissed us, with one even acknowledging, “Yes, you have” when we remarked that we essentially made a donation for food we couldn’t eat.

Sadly, we weren’t the only ones dissatisfied – we overheard another customer commenting on the poor state of the food, though she was too nervous to say anything due to the way we were treated.

What stood out positively in an otherwise dreadful experience was Kara, the young girl who cleared our plates. She was polite and professional, a welcome contrast to the rest of the team.

Considering the cost of the meals (£10.99 for the carvery, £15 for the burger), the quality of both the food and the service was unacceptable. This visit was a huge disappointment, and based on the poor service and quality we experienced – coupled with the clear pattern of complaints I’ve seen in recent reviews – I would not recommend The Holly Blue to anyone.

I truly hope this review will prompt an investigation into the current management and the quality control of the food served, as this experience was completely...

Me and my wife came here as we thought it would be a nice meal out, sadly I was very disappointed. No one came and greeted us at the door so we went up to the bar, there was no signage to say where to go to be seated, once seated we decided to order food and drink on the app. The drinks were nice I admit, the sex on the beach cocktail was good, nothing special, but good. I ordered cheese bites as a starter and the hunters chicken as a main. The starter took about 25 minutes to come out, it didn’t seem busy so I was confused as to why it took that long but we didn’t mind too much when it came to the wait for the starters, once the starters had arrived I thought the cheese bites weren’t great value for money but they were alright, for around £5/£6 I expected better than four tiny cheese balls, no one did a check back on the starters. When it came to the mains my wife and I were waiting over an hour for them to come out, once again we were confused as it didn’t seem busy and no staff bothered with us. Once the hunters chicken had arrived I was shocked, absolutely shocked. So there was a few chips on the plate, the tomato was purely burnt black on 90% of it, the chicken had overdone burnt bacon on, no sauce at all on the chicken and it was an odd colour and texture, I ate the chips, took a bite of an onion ring and left the rest as it was overly greasy, left the burnt tomato, took the bacon off and left it, attempted to eat the chicken but left most of it, I tried adding bbq sauce to the side to see if that would help but there was no helping it, for roughly £15 I expected at least decent food. During this whole time not a single person came to do a check back on us, I don’t understand why as I saw them doing check backs on other tables. We were going to order desserts but after that whole experience decided not to, we were going to ask for a refund or something with the main meals but honestly we didn’t feel welcomed at all and if anything felt slightly uncomfortable with the lack of care from the staff so we left our food on the table and left the restaurant as soon as our taxi arrived. Putting it simply, the whole experience was shocking. I have attached pictures of the food I left from...

Drawing up outside this place looks welcoming. Inside you're assaulted with a slew of signs about how to order food. Nobody around to verbally help so go and sit at a table, which unfortunately was not cleaned properly so all sticky and unpleasant,grainy with sprinkled salt. Don't want someone to bring my carvery because how would I know what's on offer so don't use QR code facility ( this place has gone all out on keeping staff to a minimum and it shows). I go to bar to enquire how I place order for two carvery meals and a charming helpful girl tells me what to do and I pay. My wife and I go to the carvery and then I realise I've made a serious mistake. Pigs,turkey and beef don't come that shape, so the three meat choices are processed lumps of ghost meat. The Yorkshire's which are heavily pushed (presumably cos they take up a lot of plate space) are soggy. seriously soggy. The turkey is dry and sinuous with gristly lumps through it the beef, surprisingly is ok. The veg choice is derisory: dried out peas, dried carrots stodgy, mainly bread, gloopy stuffing, cauliflower cheese the sauce is lumpy and not cheesy. The roast potatoes are of the sort where you take a potatoes ,cut it into twelve chunks and then roast so you get more bounce to the ounce. Overall this meal was awful. The "chef" in somewhat perpertetic attendance should ,at the least kept the veg freshened this was after all only 1pm. A minor irritation is that the "chef" could at least pointed us to the gravy etc which was in a completely different place to the rest of the service so we missed it. In hindsight covering up this travesty of a carvery in gravy would have probably been a blessing. Would I eat here again? Never. I've wasted an hour and a half and £45 I can't replace why...