Belgian Waffle Belgian Waffle

Light, fluffy Belgian waffle topped with fresh seasonal berries and a dollop of whipped cream.

The Refuge By Volta

The Refuge By Volta

Oxford Road, Manchester I-M60 7HA, United Kingdom

British • European • Vegetarian • Contemporary


"Excellent! We spent around four hours here on a Tuesday afternoon sampling their food, savouring their coffee and scabbing their free wifi! I 'll start with the basics. The Refuge is conveniently located on Oxford Street just a two minute walk from the train station. The casual seating area is huge with plenty of places for different sized groups to sit, there 's even an Apprentice Style boardroom table. The vibe is very relaxed but when I entered I noticed a lot of business people (or people clearly working). The decor is fantastic, as mentioned its a huge open space but the dark wooden finish makes it feel close and comfortable. The lunch menu isn 't huge but they clearly want to keep things simple and do them right. I had the beef burger accompanied by skinny fries and it was delicious. Just the right consistency so you could pick it up without it falling apart. It was generously topped with salad and the 'posh big mac ' sauce finished it off nicely. If you want to eat you 'll have to head through to the dining area as they don 't serve food in the lounge beware this was very busy, even on a Tuesday, so you may need to book in advance. After lunch we headed back to the lounge area and had a coffees while we chatted. The coffee was great, I had a flat white which was just off on the good side of bitter. We also ordered snacks later in the day the Almonds cooked in bacon fat are a must try that might sound gross to some people but just wait until the bacon flavour hits your taste buds! To access the free wifi you 'll need to sign up wth your email address but then it 's all yours. I haven 't even received a spammy email a week later. It 's really hard to fault The Refuge the staff were attentive without being too in your face, which I suppose is important when people are using their premises for business meets! All in all a really great experience and a lovely place to spend the afternoon working."

Wild Carrot and Bar

Wild Carrot and Bar

Dogmersfield Park Chalky LaneHampshire RG27 8TD, Hook, United Kingdom

Full • European • Breakfast • Bar-lounge


"Extortionately overpriced for basic pub grub, plus poor service and no allergen menu. First of all, my wife and I regularly frequent very high end establishments. This isn’t what you would expect at this price point. The location is beautiful, the staff are well dressed and courteous, however, the decor on the wild carrot is tired and the food is 50/50… read on… On arrival we were seated at a dark table with no view, when there were plenty of nicer tables it was quite quiet . We shortly asked to move which was a waste of of our time. My wife has an egg allergy and was horrified to discover they had no allergen menu they could share with us, plus the two waiters said they had no idea about allergens so had to check with the chefs each time, which made us nervous. I’m fairness the cocktails were good. The Wild Carrot starter, which was meant to have rainbow radishes and crudités was a £0.75p £1 bag of mixed leaf salad you’d get in a supermarket with some cherry tomatoes and sliced carrot, no radish. The fish and chips had thick undercooked doughy batter and they hadn’t removed the skin on the fish. The chips were supermarket chunky McCains type frozen chips and undercooked. For £28 I expect far, far better. This was more £18 pub grub at best. My mushroom toast was excellent and the mushroom pasta was also good but the side of fries for which I didn’t ask the cost was £8 !! they were limp and flavourless, essentially KFC/McDonalds level when not fresh, small portion too. My wife left about 30 40% of her food it was so bad, I ate mine as I’m more stubborn, but in hindsight, it really wasn’t worth the money as experiences of that price point should be equal, certainly not compatible to pubs and takeouts. The correct cutlery wasn’t laid out and our water wasn’t topped up once. To make matters worse, they added 15% to the bill but didn’t bring the itemised bill, just put the total on the card machine and brought that, at this point we just paid up and made for the exit. A totally embarrassing set up with incompetent staff and horrendous poor quality produce and cooking. Felt like daylight robbery and ruined our day. Read the other reviews, there’s a running theme for being overpriced and disappointing here and it’s letting what looks to be a very nice hotel down. Everything needs changing here except the cocktails and the mushroom toast starter. Also, other reviews are correct, wild kids everywhere, no wild carrots in sight. AVOID."