Restaurants at The Ickworth Hotel — Restaurant in West Suffolk

Afternoon tea booked for a birthday (noted in the booking) with dog. Checked on booking last week and double checked on dog and I was informed we would be in the conservatory. Arrived 15 minutes early to the hotel with the dog and were told we would be in the conservatory. At the conservatory informed we were in a different room. Bearing in mind there were only two people present in the conservatory! We were shown to an empty warm carpeted room with drab stained chairs and were not given a choice of which table to sit at and given a table behind the door. Ordered tea (were not provided with a choice) . Ordered sparkling water which arrived in an unsealed bottle and it was barely sparkling. 35 mins after arriving and really forgotten about I walked to ask where the cream tea was and informed it was being made’fresh’. It arrived with no explanation about the deserts and was anything but ‘fresh’. Hard corners of bread. Warmed scones that went cold and rock hard and dry. To top all of this they automatically added a 20% tip. I did not have the strength to reduce this. It was a huge disappointment and I would not recommend. Their ‘waggy tails tea’ welcome was non existent. No acknowledgement of my daughter’s birthday. As I say...

Please avoid this restaurant unless absolutely necessary and go to the local pubs instead.

On a quiet Wednesday evening we came for my birthday with our children. We were the sole guests in the currently being renovated conservatory

After a polite start (welcome, drinks etc) things just .. stopped. After our starters no one properly cleared our plates so by the end of the night our starter dishes where still in the table

No one offered more drinks, they incorrectly cooked my steak ; I had to chase them because of course, no one came to check if the food was ok. Even then it was burnt medium rare fillet - not sure how you achieve that.

No one offered desert and we paid when we walked out. Overall very expensive restaurant for OK food but abysmal service.

Try to avoid and google local pubs and restaurants, after that we dined locally and...

Went for afternoon tea for 3 people. Took a long time to bring the order and there seemed to be a lot of confusion from staff about which one was standard, which was gluten free and which was the child's. Multiple back-and-forth trips to the kitchen ensued. When the food finally arrived it turned out to be very small portions given the high price. Vegetable sticks for the child were dried out, as if they'd been lying around for hours. A weird banana cake infused with thyme that was inedible. GF scones were cold to the touch. The lone macaron had no flavour at all. There was a single slab of dry chocolate cake.

Staff seemed perpetually confused and the food was bad. Making it worse was the £95 cost, which is frankly rude given the poor quality and small portions.

Spoiled a nice family day out...