"Christmas Dinner 2023 We waited, stood in reception for quite a while before we were noticed or seated there was no one there to greet us with a smile then when we were finally acknowledged we were sat on a table outside the toilet. We were not offered a drink at all almost 20 minutes went by after we were seated we had to finally grab someone passing and ask who our server was and ask for a drink. The service wasn’t good, we didn’t know who our server was for almost 40 minutes, the food was not an enjoyable experience at all. The 4 canapés were sad they looked like they had piped them onto the dry cracker hours before, cold and old looking. The 2 chicken liver pate ones were ok tasting the other two were unpleasant . Visually sad looking. The onion tart presented well but was far too sweet the balance of flavour was very poor, the mushroom soup looked nice but tasted like tinned and not fresh. Main course was very disappointing, the positives were the turkey gravy was warm and moist and tasted nice the one small stuffing wrap was very tasty. Negatives, the roast potatoes were not crispy fairly hard they tasted unpleasant. The carrots were over cooked, mushy tasteless as were the sprouts, the cauliflower cheese has almost no cheese sauce and there was no cheese in the sauce. Parsnips bland undercooked tasteless like the rest of the vegetables. No seasoning on anything. We both chose a cheese board the basic cheeses were fine the sweet pickle was nice although the blue wasn’t a good choice something softer creamier would have been a far better choice. The crackers were visually very nice to look at and the few grapes were pleasant, sweet and seedless, they are the positives. The presentation of the cheeseboard was unbelievably bad it was all just thrown on a thick white plate with no finesse or even a garnish in sight. They say you eat with your eyes first, well …when I saw the cheese board I sighed…. it was just like a child had put it on the plate. This made me feel like the restaurant just don’t care about making this a good experience. Drinks The cocktail was coconut rum and raspberry, didn’t taste of raspberry at all and I didn’t drink it. As I love coconut and rum a raspberry it’s hard to see how they messed this up so much so that I couldn’t force myself to drink it. They don’t have a sparkling rose on the menu that you can buy by the glass, you have to buy a large bottle. I did request one and was refused and it was only after I asked to speak to the manager that an open bottle was found and I was offered a glass of it. All in all the experience was unpleasant the four different servers that we flagged down to get served didn’t smile at us once between them and we weren’t made to feel welcome or like our custom was appreciated the meal cost around £230 for two quite frankly I don’t feel like I got my monies worth it was very very disappointing. I would not go back."
