"We had booked a table a week in advance, and when we arrived were shown to an empty room beyond the toilets, freezing cold, tinny music coming out of a wall speaker. Terrible. Complained, marched back to the main bar to sit at one of the available tables there. Very weird and now I felt awkward as I’d already complained about something within 1 minute of being there. We then ordered 3 drinks from the drinks menu, the waitress returned 5 minutes later to tell us that 2 of the 3 were unavailable so we ordered something else from the bar. Then the food…one of us has to eat gluten free we asked which meals were gluten free and the waitress went away for a while and then came back and announced that only the gammon and chips was. This is what used to happen about 10-15 years ago when all pubs were clueless about food intolerances, nowadays many meals are cooked gluten free, but this was like some kind of throwback. We eventually settled on a lamb duo, with the shepherds pie removed, but no alternative offered until we asked for it, and then it was mashed potatoes. Wow.I ordered slow cooked pork belly with crackling, but when it arrived I had to send it back because it was so badly cooked. The fat had not been rendered down so it was a lump of inch thick fat with soggy warm skin on the top, pretty revolting. The other meal was hunters chicken the chicken had been breaded and fried, ok, but then it had 1 little piece of bacon on top and a dribble of bbq sauce really rubbish, no effort made to create something so pub classic and delicious as it should be.which was also a bit weird and disappointing . So we left having had an awkward and strange meal the manager was very nice but her staff were mostly clueless about the food and drink, maybe they had just started that night?"
