What's your worst restaurant experience?

[RainbowsAndCrystals]

Had one where I was with two friends having breakfast and coffees ... they kept asking friends if they wanted another drink and ignored me every single time.

there's been worse and places I would never go back to.

Bella Italia, Cardiff. We were there for to see Coldplay at the stadium, went in at 5pm when to be fair, it was extremely busy. So we ordered a shared starter and 4 mains......starter took over an hour , it was a pizza bread and mains took another hour after that. Kitchen had clearly lost our order and we only complained when every table around us had been served, some of whom had just arrived. Biggest insult was the £150 bill that the manager refused to reduce..........!!

Trip to New York, found a much raved about Italian restaurant near the hotel and waited over an hour for a table. I ordered a veggie pasta dish, that literally was a mountain of overcooked linguine topped with barely warm tinned tomatoes and huge slivers of raw garlic. I still can't understand wtf it was meant to be. It was the worst thing I'd ever eaten in my life, and cost $50. We have never ever chosen another restaurant from Trip Advisor reviews since....... .

Restaurant in Provence. Ordered the local speciality which I forget the name of but it was basically loads of stuff to dip into aioli. Obviously chose the wrong restaurant as what they served us was inedible. We complained to a completely disinterested waiter who clearly thought that Les Anglais were just horrified that it came with snails. Eventually, in frustration, I picked up a carrot which promptly fell apart and said, in my best schoolgirl French, 'even in England we don't cook carrots this badly!' The self-deprication did the trick, he snorted with laughter and they took the food off the bill.

In Venice, really pretty canal-side restaurant, worst food I have ever been served. We barely ate a thing. When we complained we were told to pay up or they'd call the police. It is still scorched into my brain that it cost 70 Euros, which was a shit load of money to us at the time.

Restaurant 1 - in a hotel in Woolacombe. I had a salad that had a live creepy crawly in it. They weren't even bothered when it was pointed out to them. Had a dish called 'Friends of the Deep' - pieces of assorted fish and seafood, though 'Friends of he Deep Freeze' would have been more appropriate. Hotel now closed and turned into flats.

Restaurant 2 - years ago in West Kensington, an Italian restaurant where we ordered gins and tonics and mine came with a huge piece of ice in it which on closer inspection turned out to be a jagged piece of glass. Boyfriend of the time too timid to speak up so I had to.

Restaurant 3 - a Beefeater in Woking with work friends. The one next to me ordered fish (as you do) and after it was delivered the waitress came up with a piece of lemon in her fingers, then chucked it onto friend's plate, saying "Forgot your lemon".

My Old Dutch Pancake House- couldn't eat the pancakes so ordered a Tuna Nicoise salad. All the pancakes came out, and no sign of the salad. Eventually flagged down a waitress who huffed and puffed and went off. It arrived 25 minutes after everything else, so all my friends had finished... At the end, I asked to speak with the manager- the waitress said no and walked off. I'm not even sure the chain exists anymore.

Another couple accepted our meals, ate them and left. Only came to light that that had happened when I inquired about how much longer our food would be.
Not the restaurant's fault, obviously, and we got our meals quickly afterwards, but seriously, who just eats food that is brought to their table when you know full well you haven't ordered anything?!?!

AnyFarrahFowler the people who ate our bread and hummus

Group meal out with two strict vegetarians who both got served chicken enchiladas. One was throwing up in the toilets, the other got really irate at the waitress who burst into tears. Manager was so apologetic and waived the bill for all the food and drinks to which most people were thrilled with, except the two vegetarians who were angry at the rest of the table being happy at their misfortune, which resulted in a mass argument and the rest of the evening ruined!

Went to a pub where we all ordered pies - steak, chicken and vegetable - but they all came without the pastry as "the pastry lids haven't been delivered this week"!

kalinkafoxtrot45
How long were you there for? Surely you realise other people may want to eat at some point..?

This isn't about the food but it happened in a restaurant.
When DS was toilet training it took him ages to poo in the toilet and so we had loads of accidents and poo filled underpants.

We went to eat in Spur. DS went off to play in the playroom and minutes later all the kids started running out of the playroom shouting and crying about 'poo' and 'someone pooed' etc. I went to investigate and it was DS. He had pooed his pants and it had fallen out and was smeared all over the place.
I went to get some tissue and met a several parents in the toilets trying to clean their children up. One mother was giving instructions to her husband to go to Penney's and get some new clothes for their child.
We cleaned DS up as well as we could and left. Luckily we hadn't ordered anything.
I have never been more mortified. It was years before we returned to Spur.

Work Christmas dinner where there were about 10 of us, and another party a bit larger than ours squashed into the too-small side room of the restaurant. Our Christmas roasts were served to our table and we'd just started eating when the waiters suddenly reappeared looking utterly mortified and, muttering something about the wrong table and not making eye contact with any of us, they took the plates that we'd just started eating from and served them to the other table.....

Was out with DH at a really, really crap steak place about 15 years ago where the steak was completely cold, full of those rubbery sinewy tubey bits, and the service was so slow that it was virtually non-existent. Eventually after being there far too long we got the bill. £49.50 (which was so much more than our utterly crap meal was worth) had accidentally been programmed into the card machine as £4.95. We paid and left very very rapidly before they could notice!

My other restaurant isn't mine but from a friend

It was her work Christmas party. The office manager had collected £50 from all the staff for the £50 Christmas meal.
When they got there quite a few things went wrong. e.g. a picture fell off the wall and hit someone in their group on the head, food took ages, orders were wrong, service was terrible etc.
Eventually they decided to complain. The got the manager of the restaurant to come to the table. He admitted that the Chef had walked out the day before and that the kitchen was chaos.
Someone in the group said, " this really is not worth the £50 we all paid". The manager said "£50, you had the £30 menu".

The office manager screamed, burst into tears and ran out the door.

She had charged everyone £50, paid the restaurant £30 each and pocketed the rest.

Years ago DH and I stayed in a hotel in Bath. It was a bit like being in the set of Fawlty Towers, the manager was doing everything and kept telling us how long it would take because he was working alone.

Breakfast "oh the eggs will be a while I'm doing everything myself" took ages.
No jam , only marmalade.

Dinner - I ordered a mushroom in sauce risotto meal, hen it *eventually) arrived I thought it was fish and called him over. No, what I thought was flakes of fish was ice . Frozen, uncooked meal.

DD got a milkshake that had a hair inside the glass (completely different to DD or her friends hair ) they cancelled their food order ( no surprise there) .
Manager got very arsey , said they couldn't.
DD was uber cool and just left.

.

About half an hour after leaving a very weird restaurant in Andorra my dad was overcome with dreadful food poisoning and was heaving at the roadside. We were driving over a Pyrenean mountain pass and my mum had had too much wine to drive.

Not sure if it was worse for us passengers or for my dad who was so ill for two days that he probably wouldn't have minded plunging into a ravine.

He still orders mussels from time to time, even in very grubby places.

Definitely go to Soho House if you have more money than sense.

I feel sorry for your dad Hawkmoth but Andorra is the last place I would order mussels!

It wasn’t bad service as such, but I felt exceptionally judged by a waiter once in Miller & Carter. I ordered a rib eye steak and when he asked how I would like it cooked I asked for it blue (as I have had all steaks for abs long as I can remember!). He lowered his PDA thing, peered over his glasses with his head to one side and said, in THE most pathronisonf manner I have ever come across, “have you ever even had a rib eye blue? It’s very rare you know.” Well since you asked me how I would like it and I told you I would like it blue, I imagine that yes, I would indeed like it blue. Infact I would hazard a rough guess that yes, having ordered a steak cooked like that, that I have tried it at least one. I don’t order stuff just for shits and giggles to see if you’re paying attention. And I definitely don’t need the attitude. Why ask if you’re not going to believe me?!

To add insult to injury the steak was, at best, rare. Is blue steak really that unusual? They mention it ok their menu so I assume their chefs are fully capable of it, even if the waiter felt the need to ask me in a patronising manner if I was absolutely sure.

Wow that was a rant...

patronising. My phone wasn’t keeping up!!

My Old Dutch definitely still exists MouseholeCat

At a local pub I decided to order a dessert with cream. As I poured the cream over I thought it looked a bit odd. On tasting, it was milk!!
Assuming it was an error I called the waiter over, to be told they had run out of cream so sent milk out instead! Why not just come over and explain instead of trying to cover it up?

The pub is next to a massive Tesco they could easily have popped in and bought some more.

Blue steak isn't unusual, but ordering a blue ribeye is unusual. It's not generally a cut of meat that's enjoyable when blue. Most places will recommend it medium rare. Sirloins are probably the only thing I would think of as being okay when blue.

Took a couple of friends to our favourite restaurant trying to impress. Had booked a table for 7.30. Got there and there was a sign on the door saying last orders at 8pm. Took our seats, few other diners there.
Food was disappointing, my meal was all beige and everything was just warm. Worst of all was the way the waiting on staff hovered around us wanting to clear the table, get our pudding order and proceeded to close down the restaurant around us. We were the last ones there, but at 9.30 with music and lights switched off we conceded defeat and left.
Had they told us they were closing early we'd have booked somewhere else! Rural area too and no where else to go so our long overdue catch-up ended up in the parking.
Not my fav restaurant any more!

God. The Criterion when Marcus Pierre White was chef. About 2002 so not like now when you could be vocal on SM about a shit experience.

We had a 'deal' - you know the sort of thing: set menu for ££.

Was £40 a head before wine/ water etc so still not massively cheap but we were like "Ooo! The Criterion! " Think bill ended up about £60 per head.

Food was the sort of bought-in-to-heat-up in terracotta dishes that you get in VERY average Harvester style places. Cheap gristly meat, obviously microwaved ( hot in random places, cheese still solid etc)

We struggled through, obviously disappointed. Several meals were queried, sent back and so on. The service was diabolical. I don't like fawning service at all but we definitely were on the end of some "You're only here for the cheap offer" vibes.

At the end of the meal we declined to pay the 12.5% service charge. The manager stormed up to our table and there ensued a stand up row about the fact that " everyone knew you had to pay the service charge" versus us saying "No we absolutely don't and this is why..."

It was a full on half hour argument which we eventually won by threatening to walk out without paying at all ("But I will call the Police!" / "And we will tell them what we've just told you!")

The toilets were the absolute cherry on the top of that evening. They stank, there was no loo roll ( and no loo roll holder should there have been some loo roll). The tiles were old and cracked and there was no soap.

I often have dinner at fantastic restaurants all over London, thanks to my partners and friends jobs where I tag along as a plus one, and it still makes me gape to think that place was open for business.

At a cafe in a touristy area, only 2 tables but the waitress was so slow, think Julie Walters 2 soups, the food did eventually arrived though.

The waitress then sat at one of the tables and started reading the paper, nothing was going to get her moving again.
Us being very British just sat and grumbled to each other while the other table of American ladies had to shout over to her about being sorry to disturb her but they had a coach to catch.