The Annex Tavistock — Restaurant in West Devon

Came here back in May this year and had a fantastic lunch with a warm welcome and excellent service so decided to return for another birthday celebration as we were so impressed before.

Regretfully this time round it was no where near the same.

As we were a big group (8 of us) we had to pre-order the food - fair enough. On arrival there wasn't great welcome and it then took about 15 minutes before coming to take our drinks order. When serving our drinks and opening the wine, the poor waiter was distracted by another customer and didn't follow though in continuing to open the bottle (which the bottle opener was half way through) so we had to finish that.

Then, the food was another half an hour or so after that meaning we had been there for about 45 minutes already - bearing mind this was pre-ordered and you are limited on how long you can have the table for.

When the food arrived, it was absolutely embarrassing - the portion sizes were like that of a snack. This wasn't tapas, it was an insult. The sourdough bread is £5.10 per portion and all it is is literally 4/5 slices of very small baguette bread. The so called "small-plates" were indeed VERY small. Some dishes lacked seasoning and were also bland - different or new chef perhaps?

So be very cautious when ordering your food - our bill was £326.00 and we left hungry and very disappointed. Before in May we were stuffed. I have also read other people's reviews saying similar things so please do take note.

It's clear the staff are either new or need training - by all means they were not rude at all, but inexperienced. We did leave them a tip out of courtesy however and didn't want to cause a fuss and complain on the day.

Sadly we will not be returning, which is a real shame. Wish they had kept the same...

I came here for an anniversary meal with my wife. We had very high hopes as we had heard several recommendations but we both came away a little disappointed. The place looks lovely, with beautiful views over parts of Tavistock. It felt quite cramped, we were sat at a table on the side. There were bottles on shelves along the walI, some of which stuck out beyond the edge of the shelf, meaning I nearly knocked one off a couple of times. On the other side of the table was a small gap where the serving staff were going backwards and forwards all the time with hot dishes of food. I had not really had Tapas before so did not really know what to expect. The dishes were quite expensive for their size and were of very mixed quality. The goats cheese, honey and fig on sourdough bread she said was excellent. My wife also had some lamb kofta which were quite dry and a bit bland. I had chorizo and manchego croquettes which were delicious, hot king Prawns (which must have reffered to the fact they were served warm, as they were not spicy as expected) which were nice, and spicy chicken skewers which were a little burnt and not that spicy. I like the idea of Tapas but with the dishes being quite expensive for their size it just made the disappointing dishes that much more impactful. Were the dishes slightly smaller, and cheaper, to allow a better selection, then one disappointment would be less of a big deal. Overall I would be hesitant to give The Annex another try in future as there are other places around where I know I can get consistently good...

Sadly the most underwhelming restaurant experience in a while. (I am aware of the other reviews so we may have caught an off day but this is our experience.) We arrived in time for our booking but our table wasn’t ready for another 10 minutes, instead of being seated at the bar we were left by the entrance, which is by the bar and kitchen entrance, so we felt in the way. The food coming out looked and smelt lovely and the atmosphere was pleasant, although we noticed cobwebs on the light on the bar and the windowsill had a fair amount of dust. When seated we had to wait for menus, prompting us to catch a servers attention, we had to do this at almost every stage of the meal (drinks, more plates, the bill), as if we had been forgotten about. We were told the chicken dish we wanted was off the menu so ordered several others. A couple that came were quite nice, but unfortunately the duck and chicken came without any sauce and the server explained this was a mistake and kindly removed these from the bill and offered another dish. We asked again if they had the original chicken dish (as we had seen it go to multiple other tables), we were told it was still out of stock, as we were fed up at this point we asked for the bill. The server then told us the chicken was suddenly back in stock after we pointed out other tables had it. We had this dish and it was lovely, as were the mocktails. The bill never came so we paid at the bar. I’m sure it could be a great restaurant but regrettably we didn’t see this...