Richmond
Middleton Lodge Estate

Middleton Lodge Estate

Forge, Middleton Lodge, Middleton Tyas,, Richmond I-DL10 6NJ, United Kingdom

Cafés • Brunch • British • Terrace


"We arrived frazzled because we drove around the grounds in the dark not knowing where to go. The signage inside the grounds is no help at all. Allow time for this if you haven't been before. Fortunately we had because we wanted a pre dinner drink in the bar before we ate. Even when we did arrive we weren't sure if we had arrived at the back entrance because we stood for ages with no welcome or acknowledgement. A very disappointing start to our evening. When someone did come they didn't take our coats. We went through to the snug for a drink. They gave us menus and went away. Later came back for our order. We got our drinks and ordered our food. Then very quickly afterwards we were asked to go through to the restaurant. We had only had a couple of sips of our drinks and it was still prior to the time we had actually booked our table for (7.30pm). We felt rushed. The food came and was fabulous. I had the beetroot starter which had beautifully cooked beetroots and some pickles. It also had a grain through it. I couldn't remember what the grain was so asked a member of staff. She didn't know so went away to ask and came back saying it was probably buckwheat....probably! My main was pork belly with parsnip and an apple reduction. The pork could have been cooked a little longer. I think belly needs to be very well cooked until really soft. The top skin was impossible to cut through as it was not crisp, I couldn't eat it. A steak knife would have helped. Having said that it was still a good dish which could have been excellent. We had sides of mashed potato and greens with pickles both superb. The presentation of both dishes was innovative and inviting. Portion size was good too not tiny portions of fiddled with food which I much prefer. The service was not as polished as the food. There was no obvious manager and we had different servers which is never quite as good as one for the entire meal. The servers were scruffy not appropriate for such a lovely building. Overall it was OK but could have been superb with more attention to some details. Service: 2 Location: 3"

Butter Beans

Butter Beans

3 Westminster House Kew Road, Richmond I-TW9 2ND, United Kingdom

Cafe • Cakes • Coffee • Breakfast


"Very poor experience overall. Coffee was great but other than that, very much regretted the visit. Iced mocha had chocolate bits at the bottom all stuck together in a frozen block, so it was an iced coffee with a big lump of chocolate bit 's in. When asked about it, the Australian female working said that 's how we make it, it has chocolate bits in it. No attempt made to rectify the drink but a spoon was offered, presumably to eat the lump of iced chocolate? You certainly can 't taste the chocolate in the drink or suck any of the bits through a straw... This situation was made far worse when the same woman deemed it appropriate to loudly repeat to her colleague over whole cafe that, it 's meant to be like that and she 's drunk it all anyway, so what does she want, I offered her a spoon! This is some of the worst customer service I 've ever experienced. She was surely aware we could all hear her slagging the customers off behind their back. On top of this the pancakes were very average, bacon came out burnt to a crisp (literally shattered when attempting to cut). Again, we felt the need to complain which she was fine about this time, so took away the bacon and brought back some virtually raw bacon instead, which we had to again ask to be cooked properly. She was fine about this but still had to hear the back and forth with the chef. The keto salad bowl was the most boring, lackluster meal I 've ever been unfortunate enough to pay for. Very dry chicken no seasoning and everything separated. Could literally have not made it any more bland or boring other than a tiny bowl of dressing was included. In summary, nice coffee but avoid the drama of the staff 's bad attitude and incredibly average and dull food."