"We had high hopes of using the Malt and shovel for a 50th birthday celebration (and as it turns out, engagement too We were recommended to book the pub by our air b and b host, reviews online looked good, Vintage inns who own it offer a celebration menu. However, so many things went wrong it 's probably easier to group them by topic! Communication. You can 't book online for more than 6 people. The prices at the time weren 't shown. Took 6 phone calls (4 unanswered , 3 messanger messages and 2 emails to get an answer (even then the email gave the wrong answer . Put this down to a busy pub.... When we arrived, however, the waitress knew nothing about us booking the celebration (even though I 'd called 3 days ahead as well as the original call to check all was OK with the booking. Service On arrival we were told to make our own way to the back room and that menus would be brought through shortly. We waited 10 mins, no one came so went to see if we could collect the menus. Were told to go back and someine would come through shortly. After another 5 mins a waitress came 'to take our order ' We had to say that we couldn 't order as we didn 't have any menus. She then came back with standard menus. We explained we 'd booked for the celebration menu. She said she didn 't know anything about it, that we had not been booked in for it and she didn 't know if it was possible. I pointed out that the website says celebration menu is available all day every day. She went off. In the meantime someine else took our drinks order. However, when the drinks were served 1 was incorrect and had to be sent back. As we were cold, and there 's a large sign saying 'dont sit there chilly, ask a member of staff to light the fire ' we asked to have the fire lit. The waitress says she 'd need to ask the manager and went off. Another waitress took our order. 4 of us had decided to have steaks. We asked for them on the rare side of medium. She explained she didn 't know what that meant as she is vegetarian. After clearly misunderstanding what we meant, i said medium was fine (if that were the only issue with the meal I wouldn 't have mentioned it Our starters came, 1 hr and 10 minutes after we had first sat down . They were fine .We asked another waitress about the fire being litvas we were stop cold . She went off to 'have a look ' and didn 't come back. The mains arrived. The waitress asked who 'd ordered steak with Bernaise sauce, as she had 3 of them. None of us had, we had all ordered the dropping sauce or peppercorn. She said it wouldn 't be an issue to get the sauce changed for the 3 steaks and went off. Came back to tell us they 'd run out of the sauce we had ordered so had substited it but we could order something else if we wanted. I said there was no point ordering again as the rest of the food would get cold whilst we waited to have something else made up. 1 dish arrived substantially after the rest had been served. No one checked to see how the food was (I will explain in the food section below until most of the meal was finished. We asked again to have the fire lit but was at this point told they couldn 't light the fire as they didn 't have any wood. We were offered a free dessert due to the problems with the mains,but decided not to stay as we were too cold Food Total mess up on the menu. To be fair, the waitress did go off and print out the menus we had asked for after we arrived but the general delay in getting any menu meant we had an hour and 10 minute wait for any food to be served.might have been OK if the drinks were correct and the room wasn 't cold. Staters were great when they arrived. Waitress didn 't seem to understand how we 'd like our steak when we ordered the mains We decided just to say medium, as the suggestion given that they 'd 'serve them all medium and send them back to get them rare if we didn 't like them ' was nonsensical When they arrived, 3 had wrong sauces, the 4th sauce was cold. Of the 'medium ' steaks, 3 were rare, 1 (which came out late was blue. This plate also had uncooked 'grilled ' tomatoes. 1 steak had a hair on the plate. The pizza had hardly any topping but was also really greasy. The sea bass and mash was good, according to my daughter Atmosphere On first entry, is appeared a vibrant old style pub with bubbly staff. The back room, however, which has a, chalkboard stating 'book this area for your celebration ' was both draughty and cold. To be fair to the staff, I suspect they were short staffed and were very quick (once they realised the mistake with the mains to offer us a free dessert. As it as we were cold, and I had already bought a 50th birthday cake which I had left back in the accommodation so we decided to go back instead of staying as we were all cold. Instead were given a substantial prtce reduction, which I can 't fault them for. The following day, I booked 12 of us into the 3 Tuns just down the road in Uxbridge for dinner instead. My advice, if you are a large party, would be to do the same."
