To ask what’s the most overrated restaurant you’ve eaten at?

[Hairbrush123]

I think for me, it’s a restaurant called “Tattu”. They’re dotted all around the UK and was so excited to try it but the food was so average yet they charge £100+ for two people based on a starter and main . Everyone who I know has been there absolutely loved it so maybe it’s just DP & I!

What’s the most overrated restaurant you’ve been to?

The Ivy and the Wolseley.

@Soffit

Also, The Real Greek .. the temperature is always wrong and the same overpowering oregano runs all thr way through every dish. I dislike the stressy open kitchen.

I recently ate at the Real Greek on a Groupon deal. The food was lovely but the total bill (which they tried to charge us for despite us having vouchers!) was certainly not worth what they charged us - especially when the vast majority of it is flatbreads/pitta etc with dips.

It did seem stressy there too.

Interesting so many said The Ivy! I really like The Ivy and their lunch time menu is a good price.

Glad I’m not the only one who thinks Tattu is overrated

We've eaten at Le Gavroche, Fat Duck and Le Manoir several times each and they've always been amazing.

We had 1 mediocre meal at Fifteen and then returned (for some reason), DS1 and I had a seafood stew type thing and it absolutely reeked.......clearly off.

@GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin they refunded the wine. After much huffing, puffing and eye rolling from the maitre d'. He really wasn't happy to be refunding it and kept repeating that the glass of wine was ONE PER PERSON. It had been a nice meal until then, but I'll never return because of his rudeness. I get irrationally cross when I see an email from them to this day.

Never went to Jamies Italian but I do know that in the last years of functioning, most food was bought in and heated up...

Had awful dinner at Hard rock in budapest....just vile...local friend tried to impress us i think and cocktails were like water....very over priced for the country and full of mafia types in dark glasses.....

Ditto Jamie's Italian. Had a very disappointing birthday meal there, was glad to see it go.

When I found out our town was getting a branch of The Giggling Squid I was really looking forward to trying it after reading the reviews, but both DH and I were disappointed in our meals.

The Hut near Yarmouth Isle of Wight. people I know rave about it, the location is fantastic been there twice this summer.

the food is mediocre at best, we sent ours back the first time and waited for an hour for it to be redone at which point we where told we needed to vacate the table for the next sitting.... I think not!

second time, it was very quiet and the service was appallingly slow, apparently the kitchen was very busy we where the only table there, a ruse to sell more Rose which for some reason only comes in Magnum sized bottles.

we don't really eat at fancy places like most of these but hucks at centre parcs was the worst food i have ever eaten, my child that eats everything didn't even finish their food, service was just as bad. we went again after someone said it was better now! nope just as dire and one of the children's meals didn't come until everyone else had finish!

I love tattu 🤣🤣🤣 (only been to the one in Manchester)

I love Martin Wishart's Brasserie 'The Honours' so I was surprised at how disappointing I found his Michelin starred place.

The food was okay, but not as amazing as I expected for the price. I expect tasting menu dishes to be small, but this felt stingy. Even the hand poured paired wine felt like it was as little as they could get away with offering.

I don't expect to come away from a Michelin starred place feeling like I've been to an all you can eat buffet, but I'm pretty tiny so I do expect to feel like I've been adequately fed and watered

Jamie’s Italian. I was so disappointed. I’d loved his shows and watched from the very first series he did. I loved lots of his recipes and was so excited when DH booked for our anniversary before we went to see a comedy show.

The food was mediocre. The pasta was too hard for my taste (I know it’s supposed to be al dente but this was the wrong side of it!) and it was quite plain and boring. Dessert was deconstructed something or other. I was annoyed about that meal for a long time.

Oh, so many to choose from...now, for some of these, it's a long, long time since we ate there, so things might have changed, but pretty near the top of my list, if not AT the top, is the Haunch of Venison in Salisbury. I know it was near Christmas and we were a largeish party (12 or 14 or so of us), but it wasn't all that busy (there was us and one other work party), they whacked a 12.5% service charge on the bill without telling us, and the food was pretty indifferent. Yet people rave about it...there's also the Old Thatched Cottage on the seafront in Weston-super-Mare, which again, people rave about, but the one and only time we ate there it was, well, adequate, and really quite expensive for what it was.

When it comes to actual worst restaurants, though, it's a toss up between an Italian trattoria in Edinburgh on a work thing (can't remember the name, it was near the Holiday Inn by Express in the city centre; but they had the longest list of Italian dishes I've ever seen, turns out they were all basically just tinned ravioli with microwaved pasta, the wine list consisted of red or white, and they served meat to one of our very strict vegetarian colleagues) and the Boat and Anchor in Bridgwater. Although they were both SO bad it was actually funny by the end of the meal.

I came in to say The Ivy, didn’t expect it to be mentioned so frequently though.

Poor High street chains include frankie and benny’s, carluccios, Jamie’s, Miller and Carter, in fact most of them except Wagamama’s and Pizza Express, but I’m a vegan and these are the only ones that cater well.

@VitalsStable

The Ivy. Any of them.

Agreed. I was excited to be invited to lunch, having never been there. The company was charming but the food completely underwhelming.

I work for a double Michelin star place. Haven't seen it mentioned yet...

My friend used to work for The Wolesley! She is wonderful, but she no longer works there.

@FrangipaniBlue

I'm a bit at people saying Nandos, KFC, Wagamama etc

Did you really go to these places expecting to be wowed???

They're chains, I go expecting mass produced chain type food and nothing more!

Agree, I'm not sure they claim to be high end. I think you get what I'd expect to get. Fried chicken.

I'm adding The Paternoster Chop House. Pile of overpriced, overhyped shite. Its a cold, unwelcoming canteen with crap service. My local Italian does steak waaaaay superior to them at a quarter of the cost.

Rick Stein’s Padstow

Service was appalling ( served people who had come in after us and then gave our meal to another couple) food was bland. This was a big birthday treat for me and I was disappointed.

A few days later we came across Paul Ainsworth at Number 6.
A fabulous experience- friendly staff, lovely ambiance and the food was so much better.

@MrsLeclerc

Jamie’s Italian. I was so disappointed. I’d loved his shows and watched from the very first series he did. I loved lots of his recipes and was so excited when DH booked for our anniversary before we went to see a comedy show.

The food was mediocre. The pasta was too hard for my taste (I know it’s supposed to be al dente but this was the wrong side of it!) and it was quite plain and boring. Dessert was deconstructed something or other. I was annoyed about that meal for a long time.

Please construct my meal I have cupboards full of deconstructed meals at home thank you.

Smokestak in Shoreditch, God it was so loud and absolutely rammed with rude, impatient service. They have a 'small plates' thing going on which would have been fine if you could hear yourself think and to speak to the rest of the table to decide what plates you were ordering to share. The food was Ok but nothing to rave about

Anywhere in Whitstable. 1950s food with 2021 prices, poor decor and sticky tables.
I was disappointed in San Lorenzo I ordered the crudités and was given what looked and tasted like a bowl if dirty dishwater to accompany the veg. It was rank.

Yang Sing in Manchester. Listed as just about the top restaurant in Manchester’s Chinatown. We went for lunch on Wednesday and it was so disappointing. My ginger beef dumplings were like fatty, greasy, lukewarm lumps of something a bit meaty and I couldn’t taste any ginger at all. DPs soup was ok. His curry tasted like a Sainsbury ready meal and my beef noodle dish was greasy, lukewarm and really boring. Very few veggies in it. After I’d finished the dumplings the waiter took my plate but left my chopsticks which had bits of food on them propped up on a fork and bits of fat dropped off them onto the tablecloth. The amount of food was very generous but was really poor. We were going to go there or Tattu - doesn’t sound like that would have been the best choice either.

The Ivy Harrogate. Without doubt the rudest, most disinterested and unprofessional staff I have ever come across. It was quite staggering. Don’t know if we have been lucky but I’ve never really been on the receiving end of rude restaurant staff. But my God this lot were awful. The food was average at best. I would never go to any Ivy again.

A really lovely Italian restaurant I can thoroughly recommend is Florians 2 in Crouch End. Just lovely fresh food perfectly prepared.