Knife & Cleaver “Gastropub” Review!

I know it’s not audio but do bear with me, for the first and probably last time, I am going to publish a different kind of review!

Well, here’s a thing! I have thirteen million views on Google maps! Yet despite the lack of personal identification, and I fear, possibly due to cunning intervention by the restaurant management, Google maps has NOT published this review as written! ALSO, and a bit more worrying, an old mate was reading the content of this review on screenshots on Facebook, when the post became not-seeable. Fretting, as FB is notorious for arbitrary ‘disciplinary actions’ I deleted it. However, this has left me vexed enough to make a little post on the spot where I don’t have robots controlling my freedom of speech! It is the text I originally typed into Googe maps.

A Triumph of “Gastropub” Nonsense.

AVOID.

A pretty spot and handsome decor inside. But our experience was a crashing disappointment.

Compounded by a somewhat over self important manager who thought it OK to call me rude for simply telling the truth.

OK, it might offend a “Gastropub” manager to be told that I had been delivered hamburgers on a moped by Just Eat, that arrived warmer than the lukewarm burgers we were served from their kitchen, but he got upset and started off about how he “was trying to resolve it”.

This was the same bloke who had simply forgotten that my mate had asked for another beer. It only arrived after my friend had asked another member of staff, ten or more minutes later. Manager man said that it had been put through the till, (as if that made it all different) and that the receipt had become tangled in the till, which didn’t stop anyone from delivering the beer, but he seemed to think it did, and frankly I just felt he was fibbing to me.

The “skinny” chips were simply standard cut deep freezer commercial fodder…not remotely “skinny”. The little pot of coleslaw was just a bit of cut up cabbage, with no discernible dressing AT ALL. My wife’s “roast dinner” was served in a pretentious conical heap that concealed that her £21 had bought her less than fifty pence worth of a single small slice of beef, as if they were running out and/or couldn’t spare it. Toby carvery does WAY better with that for silly low prices.

We were seeking a “good” meal out but simply got gently insulted by an incompetent chef who left our assembled burgers sat while he fried chips.

The wine was £24 and was a sad weedy 8% alcohol! There was NO point in making a fuss once I had discovered the cool all but congealed temperature of our burgers…one bite and I asked my mate if his burger was warm, “No, it isnt!” was the response. We could have asked and waited another ten minutes or more for a hot one, while our women folk ate alone, so we didn’t.

But when the waitress came to take the plates away, I did tell her the burgers (which despite the fancy description, were a stamped-out patty, again from frozen supply) were all but cold and asked her if the kitchen were running out of meat for the roasts? Manager was bristling, came and sat at our table and all but harangued me, as I say, getting upset when I said that Just Eat could do better and was aggressive about how he was going to “resolve it”, talking over me and calling me rude. He only shut up and got up without another word when I told him bluntly, “There’s no point. You’ve lost us anyway. We shan’t be back.”

Always, the idea that some kind of refund was in order, and that would make it all alright. NO, I hate that piffle as it always leaves them open to saying that you were just trying it on to save money. So NOPE, we paid the £100 bill with NOTHING added for ‘service’ as the manager ignored us, the chef did a poor job, and the presentation of a British roast dinner was literally pathetic. As if a cone of food was appropriate. It was a meal out with dear friends, so complaining about the burgers being obviously sat for say ten minutes before we got them brought out would have been a complete fail.

The menus read so well and they claim to be an ‘award winning’ gastropub. All I can say is WHAT AWARDS? And if so, they absolutely do NOT deserve any award other than the “Creative Mendacity of Menu” award or perhaps the “Great Gastropub Fib Award“. A grim, vile experience and that manager needs a damn muzzle.

SO..apologies for being off topic, but this does get it off my chest. I will now go and seriously abridge the review!