Whipped Goats Cheese
The Anchor Aspley Guise

The Anchor Aspley Guise

United Kingdom, MK17 8DF, Milton Keynes

Wine • Steak • Cheese • Chicken


"Don 't bother. This restaurant is part of the Unique Hospitality family/group. We referred here by the staff of another of the family: The Three Locks. The Three Locks has superb food, fantastic service and staff, and we found ourselves revisiting within the same week. Anchor Inn, on the other hand, is severely disappointed. It 's billed as the high end restaurant in the family, but it 's not at all what it believes itself to be. What they did right: We were greeted by a friendly host and immediately seated. The decor is nice, clean... and it all went desperately downhill from there. (though, the squid starter we did stick around to try was delicious What they did wrong: Ignore (forget? their customers. We received NO service. The host had taken our drink orders before leaving us, and when a waiter dropped them off, he refused to take our orders and headed off to join a group of ALL waiters in the busy, filled restaurant of diners already eating, etc. We heard them being schooled on the night 's specials, taking their sweet time asking and answering questions and talking about the service plan for the night. Once 15 minutes went by and my husband and I felt our business was completely unwanted, we interrupted the group to ask for the chance to give our orders. We were still brushed off. Later, one sympathetic waitress finally wrote down our orders and we asked how long it would take to prepare them, if the chef was also occupied we were on the brink of leaving. The waitress assured us there were many chefs in the kitchen. We wondered why no one was providing them with any orders. Surprisingly, the starter arrived quickly; the mains, less timely. And they were incredibly disappointing. Tasteless. Well presented, but completely lacking flavor or any reason for them to cost money. They were cooked well, prepared with fresh ingredients, but boring. I 've never dreaded a bit of chicken breast so much in my life. I forced myself to get a decent portion of the meal down because we waited so long for it and I needed the nourishment, but I lamented every bite. ...while being forced to listen to another diner 's continuously yipping dog sitting on her lap at a nearby table. Every customer was annoyed by this young woman 's canine dining partner, but no staff member seemed to care. Paying for our meal, we had to ask the waitress about the Unique Hospitality discount card we were supposed to receive, as every customer, eating there, for visiting any other of their family of restaurants. She seemed put off by the request, but did later deliver the card we were due. As we left the restaurant, absolutely no staff member looked up at us, acknowledged us, or said goodbye except the original, friendly host when we reached the door, never to look back. We 'll swear on any holy book you desire that we will NOT ever return to Anchor Inn. We LOVE great food, seek it out around the globe, appreciate a great meal for any appropriate price. The Anchor Inn seems more of the place one might be inclined to gloat to their friends and family that they can afford or do frequent, but they 're all terribly misguided when it comes to what 's worth putting into your mouth and fueling your body with. You should snub the Anchor Inn just like the staff snubs its diners."

The Lion and Pheasant

The Lion and Pheasant

49-50 Wyle Cop Shrewsbury, Shropshire SY1 1XJ, SY1 1XF, United Kingdom

Sushi • Pizza • Asiatic • European


"Beautifull hotel, I guess one can call it trendy , but I just don 't understand how they can justify the price £130/night and that most of the time will go to £160 as they run out of entry level ones. So I guess the answer is there because people pay for it! But let 's just make some relevant comparisons Birmingham Grand literally in the heart of the city, brand new, 5* hotel, with all recently decorated rooms to the highest standard is £135 15 for breakfast. Needless to say rooms are air conditioned, fully equipped and genuinelly very posh. Hotel has lifts, has porters and the service is top notch. The Lion is barelly 4* just for trendiness alone, but the actual quality of furnishing is closer to 3*, has no lift and you will be lugging your bags up and down mutiple flights of stairs (and I mean multiple like 8 going up and down) trought narrow corridors to mediocre room (nothing wrong with it just mediocre) which isn 't even air conditioned. Sorry, I just don 't get it. That said restaurant is good fully fine dining if you are into it. Althought in my oppinion it doesn 't fit into the rest of the hotel. So it is ~3.5* hotel which is very youghtfull and trendy and then you get 5* fine dining with very tiny portions for the dinner (which is not criticism of restaurant, it is very good on it 's own). In conclussion I just don 't get what niche this hotel is filling, who stays there and why. The price for the rooms should be £75 95 tops. Shreesbury is not exactly prime tourists destination either (at least shouldn 't). But it seems it is working out for them, I just would not recommend it, I would not stay in it again and it is definatelly not worth the price. Neither in isolation, nor in comparison."

The Derby Arms

The Derby Arms

Epsom Downs, KT18 5LQ, United Kingdom

Kebab • Sushi • Pizza • Cafés


"This is our usual venue for celebrations both because its local and because usually its a well priced great food but based on my experience last night I wont be going back for a while. A number of things went wrong, and any one on its own would have just been put down as bad fortune, but all together suggests that the owners of Derby Arms are trying to offer a fine dining experience but not backing it up. 1) I booked online and mentioned the booking was for my wife 's birthday, and at no point was this mentioned. In its self this wasn 't an issue as she never likes the attention of it, but it does suggest that nobody paid attention to the note made under special requests and dietary issues so does suggest that if I 'd made a dietary comment it may also have been ignored here 2) They brought out the wrong starter, firstly the server seemed to be expecting me to accept what he brought out, and then returned to the kitchen to get what had been ordered which did arrive very soon after. The lady who took our order came to apologise and blamed the kitchen, but given the same item was on our bill it was clearly her error. 3) The waiting staff were very pleasant but not very attentive. This was highlighted best when the server arrived with our main course and our starter plates had not been taken away. A bit of juggling later (thankfully there was a spare table nearby) all was sorted 4) When you order a £30 steak you 'd expect decent meat, served well Not on a wooden block with chips in a cup (very pub styly) 5) Both steak meals had things missing, my wife had no chips and I was missing the extra onion rings ordered. Once highlighted they arrived in good time When you 're paying £75 a head for a pub meal you really expect many of these mistakes not to be made and there is every chance we were just unlucky."