Damson & Wilde — Restaurant in West Suffolk

UPDATE: Following my below review, I spoke to the Manager, Fab. He was sympathetic to the issues we had experienced, and kindly offered a resolution which we were all happy with.

His attention on the matter reassures me that he cares about the level of service provided, and takes feedback seriously to improve customer experience.

I had been looking forward to trying this place since it opened, having been a fan of the sister Brewhouses in Cambridge and Norwich since they launched.

We went for a pre-booked work Christmas meal, but the first impression was disappointing as there were no festive table decorations, crackers, lit candles etc - and we were in a side room with no music that hadn't been prewarmed/heated. The friendly server advised she'd look for some crackers, sort the music and would light the candles.

(Photos on Facebook made it look like a nice place for a Christmas meal, with tables all decked out for the festivities)

A pint of the locally brewed Counterfeit ale went down nicely, but colleagues on the Moretti said it was flat. They pointed this out and were advised it's not as fizzy as it should be and to order something else next time if they prefer. We also had a drink come to our table which wasn't for us, and had to be sent away. We could also see our drinks going to another table at one point. The server apologised for mistakenly putting that drink down for our table, and unfortunately it still appeared on our bill and was mistakenly paid for.

Cauliflower and cheddar soup was absolutely delicious, although missing the usually found accompanying roll that you come to expect with soup. Others spoke highly of the seafood starter.

The turkey and trimmings were nice, if luke warm - although this might be as the server went to see if she could sort out the music that was still missing mid service. There seemed to be different portion sizes/presentation of the dishes too.

The chocolate and clementine tart was a nice, light way to finish the meal, although the accompanying cream seemed a bit sour (on the turn?) and colleagues said the same. When querying this we were advised that's just how the cream tastes. Then a small pot of the cream was brought out in case we wanted to test it.

We should've finished on coffees and truffles. However, they never arrived, and neither did the crackers, and the candles remained unlit.

The server was cheery and said she would sort something on the bill. We requested it to be split when we arrived, one for food and one for drink. We were told it would be fine, but when it arrived it was one bill and there was no aforementioned discount/compensation - so we paid up, and made our way into the winter's night, but perhaps not full of the Christmas cheer that you'd usually be after a festive...

Being from out of the area, we’d booked in advance for dinner at 7.45pm for 4 of us on August 22nd. We arrived at on time and were greeted quite cheerfully by the person behind the bar who seemed to be quite relaxed about the reservation and told us we could sit inside or out - it was a nice night so we checked outside but it was quite busy and very loud so as we wanted dinner, we went back and found a table indoors.

Shortly after, another colleague walked over and asked if we wanted food or drinks - we said dinner and she seemed quite unhappy with this, my friend advised we had booked and we were then told we’d be brought over a menu. After approximately 20 mins of nobody coming to our table to take our drinks order or bringing us menus, I got up to retrieve food menus - the person behind the bar pointed to where they were by the door and I grabbed four, asking how we ordered drinks and she told me to sit down and they’d come over. On the way back, I walked past the other person who had seated us and heard her remark to the bartender “for food?” In a very condescending and quite aggressive way.

Regardless, it was late, we weren’t from the area and figured how bad could it really be. The garden was exceptionally busy with what seemed like a party but there also seemed to be plenty of staff so it seemed more like avoidance than distraction for the 4 members of staff we saw - including the person who seated us and the bartender who were regularly chatting who had to walk past us to get to the waiter station and still continued to ignore us. After a further 15 minutes of no service and no table number to order on the app, we decided to head down the road and chance getting a table at Côte instead. On the way out, the bartender apologised which, although was likely sincere, felt like rubbing salt in the wound of sitting there with zero attempts at service for 35 minutes despite our best efforts.

Having been to other City Pubs, I decided to email them and let them know how poor the service was for us that night as it’s actually not reflective of their business, (emailed on August 24th) and still haven’t received a response from them (October 21st).

(I did get a blanket thanks from your email response from their head office, informing me it had been passed to “Oliver”, but Oliver didn’t care...

Ever since Damson & Wilde opened up I was always intrigued. My partner and I decided to book a table for a Sunday to have a nice date as we saw the Sunday lunch menu and was very excited. When walking in they weren't busy and they gave us time to look at the menu. Everything seemed nice, staff, interior. That's what we thought.

We put our drinks order in and also our food. It wasn't until 10 minutes that we put our order in they said they were sold out of one of the sides, surely you would of known that straight away? We got our drinks and then waited... half an hour went by, more people started coming in. 40 minutes, still no food. We asked a waiter he said it was being prepared. We assumed this meant plating it up. 50 minutes we noticed people who came in after us were getting served starters. Then another table got served a roast dinner, like we had ordered. We asked the waiter where ours were. He said it was a different cut of meat so it took longer...

It then got to a hour and still nothing. Me and my partner were starving by now and it was getting quite uncomfortable. We decided to leave as we so desperately needed to eat and others around us were being served but we weren't. We offered to pay for the drinks but the waiter said don't worry about it and are we sure as it was now, somehow, miraculously ready. We said no and as we were walking out the door the waiter said, "this could of been yours,: which was very unprofessional.

We are a young couple, but both of us have worked in hospitality in different carers. I felt like we were being looked down on as we were young customers and they didn't think we have a clue about what was going on. I think they underestimated how busy the weekend was going to be and sold out of a lot of food and had to cook more from fresh, hence the waiting time. If they had been honest and spoke with us, we would of tried to wait longer despite being hungry and we would of appreciated the honesty...

There was no trying to make amends either, no sorry, just excuses. After we left we had a quick trip to Greggs and ate sausage rolls instea, which was lovely.

Service needs to be improved.. I will not be going back as I don't feel...