Miller & Carter Brookmans Park — Restaurant in Welwyn Hatfield

Our first visit to this upmarket steak chain was at the branch which is just round the corner for us in Brookmans Park, an area that is not particularly blessed with good restaurants. It's certainly convenient and easy to locate and there is plenty of parking space though the car park was pretty full indicating a busy restaurant. And that was indeed the case when we entered. There's an upstairs too and that looked very busy along with the street level. The first impressions of the restaurant itself are quite favourable with polished dark wood everywhere and a good array of wines (mostly red of course) displayed in glass cases. We were shown to our table without delay and ordered drinks including red wine, local beer and some soft drinks. Between the three of us we ordered the Butchers' Block and though it said that it was meant for two (one if really ambitious) we found that it was great for the three of us. It comprised a variety of meat with some sides though we all felt that the best cut was the ribeye, which was cooked well to the medium-rare that we requested. The onion fritter accompanying it was very tasty and far superior to onion rings and the bone marrow was juicy too. You get two sides with this platter - we found the new potatoes good and the fries were alright but of the extra sides that we ordered, the mac 'n' cheese was a little underwhelming. We had also ordered a half plate of ribs, which were also disappointing - very dry and with very little meat on the bone. Before we had our main course we were served an excellent crispy salad bowl (with a wide choice of dressings). But the main quip was that we had to wait an hour for the main course and the salad came only 10 minutes before the main. Surely the salad could have come sooner and indeed an hour for the main was really too long. The service was decent and friendly though our waitress pushed us hard to order a dessert. They don't implement a mandatory service charge, which is rare these days, so it's up...

We ate the sharing 28oz steak with triple cooked chips, sweet potato, 3 pepercorn and mushroom sauce, nachos share, brownies.

I will rate them 1 by 1:

Steak was cooked medium as we asked, but the quality and flavours wasn't there. It was an average steak at best. Not great, not terrible. 5/10

Sauces: Dreadful. Very small amount and unpleasant taste and texture. You can not tell what you eating. It was one of the worse sauce I ever tasted. 1/10

Nachos: It was home cooked, which is nice. Unfortunately this is where it ends. It was half cold and lukewarm on the other half. The "Aged chedar sauce" very cleverly named, unfortunately we wasn't able to tell if it was related to any cheese what so ever. It was a tasteless cream. Jalapeños was okay, avocado was okay, sour cream was okay. Tomato salsa was like sweet water. 3/10

Chips and sweet potato fries was okay, nothing special, but it wasn't bad. 6/10

Brownies was nice, dark chocolate flavours, and not too sweet. 8/10

The wine selection was nice again. 9/10

The place was nice and clean. 9/10

We expected much much more from a 4.3 rated restaurant, and over £100 bill.

We worked in multiple restaurants, also doing home cooking. I understand that different people's have different experiences, standards, taste.

The worse part for us is the boss lady can cook a 10 times better steak meal from Aldi, on budget, with a 100 times better pepercorn sauce. Under £20 for 2, much much higher standard.

We wanted to like the place, unfortunately the food was a let down for us.

One picture from the restaurant, and another from our own kitchen. (Yes, the amount of sauce is ridiculous...

I went for Christmas dinner with my mother on December 23rd, with a booking for 1:00 p.m. The Christmas decorations were beautifully done, and while it was chilly outside, the restaurant was warm and inviting. We arrived five minutes early and were seated right away. Unfortunately, our table was a small two-seater right next to the stairway, which made it hard to create a cozy atmosphere. When the conversation quieted down, we found ourselves just watching the waiters go up and down the stairs— not exactly the festive vibe we were hoping for. We placed our drink orders about 20 minutes after being seated. I had already mentioned that I'm allergic to concentrated orange, so the bartender had to wait for the manager to confirm whether my drink was safe. This happened twice, as both drinks l initially ordered contained traces of orange. Because of the delay, we didn't receive our drinks until 1:52 p.m. At first it seemed like the waiter was avoiding our table, knowing we'd ask about them.

After the second mix-up, our waitress finally took our food order-right before the manager arrived (again) to inform me that my second drink choice also contained orange. At that point, I gave up and ordered a ginger beer. Our food arrived at 1:58 p.m., and it was absolutely worth the wait. We ate, we chatted, and it was lovely. The portions were generous, the food was delicious, and we couldn't even finish everything. Despite the initial hiccups with the drinks, the overall experience was great. Highly recommended -I'd definitely come back again! they take allergies seriously. Thank you to our waiter -...