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The Alice Hawthorn

The Alice Hawthorn

The Green, Nun Monkton I-YO26 8EW, United Kingdom

Pub • Vegan • British • Vegetarian


"27/03/15 My first visit to The Alice. As you drive into the village of Nun Monkton, you absorb your beautiful surroundings of this quaint little village and look in awe at the green and the very tall may pole. This small village boasts the largest may pole and green in the whole of the UK. Upon arriving at the pub, I could see the chickens and vegatables growing in their gardens, this, always a pleasing sight to be had. The Alice boasts an array of outdoor seating at the front and in the secluded, manicured gardens to the rear too. The pub is beautifully decorated with a small, intimate dining room, a bar area for more casual dining and drinks and a large room, perfect for larger parties. Rebecca, the Assistant manager chats to me about their up and coming plans for the premises and the option to have drinks receptions in the barn for larger parties, served around a warming fire pit in the colder months. I order a gin and tonic, served with rosemary and cucumber, a delightful and refreshing special and begin choosing food to order. I view the creative menu and opt for goats cheese croquettes, walnut, apple and beetroot to start. The flavours blend delightfully and offer an explosion of taste jointly, for main the Chicken tagliatelle which is served in a rich, creamy sauce and made with fresh paster, seasoned perfectly. Next time, I will save space for dessert, but this time, there was simply no room left! Beautiful food at reasonable prices and with something for everyone."

The Brook Inn

The Brook Inn

Sillins Lane, Redditch, United Kingdom

Meat • Steak • Chicken • Chocolate


"Arrived a few minutes early at 3.15pm for our 3.30pm booking. Very warm welcome from blonde waitress at bar. Very quickly seated by dark haired waitress with glasses who wasn 't very friendly from the start. Pub was fairly busy on arrival but soon became fairly quiet, perhaps explaining our tail end of service poor experience. Wine list had to be chased as didn 't arrive. Drinks also had to be chased. Service to actually place our order had to be chased as we were seemingly abandoned after asking for a few minutes to chose our meals after being asked for our order only a couple of minutes after arrival. Further service had to be chased from our dead zone later in the meal. These were details only, very annoying but par for the course these days sadly. The main and more significant issue was the quality of the roast beef. Tough to the point that you could not cut it. Also delivered not as requested in terms of cooking so lots of back and forth to get our meat cooked as we had asked. Numerous veg were cold or luke warm. Several yorkshire pudding way beyond crisp to the point of being burnt. Excessive salt on majority of veg. Manageress arrived fairly quickly and was initially responsive but the experience at this stage was already hugely spoiled. Replacement food was much better but by that stage we had been put off the whole lunch and to reflect this were offered 2 glasses of wine and a portion of custard to compliment our dessert! This place has been unreliable since the start of the Giles ownership. The family attitude to customers is poor. We asked for the manager to review the bill to reflect the poor experience and ended up being passed a phone to talk to the manager who had gone home. This some 3 hours after we entered the pub due to the awful experience we had encoiuntered."

Cote Brasserie Esher

Cote Brasserie Esher

United Kingdom, KT10 9QJ, Elmbridge

Bars • Steak • French • Breakfast


"I had a disappointing experience at Cote. My mother had just moved to the area today and we were looking for a quick bite to eat, before we started to unpack. Despite the restaurant not being full and having empty tables, the waitress on the door was very rude and immediately told us that they were full. There were a few empty tables which could clearly be seen in the windows. I have been to other Cote chains many times before and have never encountered such behavior. I quickly went online and found that there were indeed tables available, so I made a reservation and returned to the restaurant, hoping to wait at the bar and have some drinks. However, we were not allowed in and were told that our reservation was for 15 minutes later. I went away and, to my surprise, our reservation was canceled even though there were empty tables. I was surprised and frustrated that Cote required reservations. It's not even a high end restaurant, and the prices are reasonable FiveGuys is more expensive and that's a fast food restaurant. If they had simply told us politely that there was a dress code or some other issue, it would have been more acceptable. Unfortunately, they were rude and unaccommodating. As someone who lives in Richmond, I am disappointed that my first experience in Esher was ruined by the poor service at Cote. We ended up going to Coppa Club in Cobham, where we were treated much better. I hope that Cote can improve their service in the future so that other customers do not have the same experience as we did."