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?

I knew Tattu would be crap - a college recommended it a couple of years ago. I really wanted to go but nobody would come with me..I followed on Instagram and decided it's probably crap.

Do you remember Frankie and Benny's? Always bloody awful. Rick Steins Padstow. I didn't think it was that bad but DH got the rage probably because he was paying

Bryn Williams' restaurant in Colwyn Bay, not much choice, overpriced and luke warm, completely over rated

@TheMaddingCrowd

A place in York called the house of trembling madness. I ordered a meat platter and it was just four fucking slices of meat! Fucking. Four. Just completely taking the piss.

Oh no! This is one of our favourite places and always had great platters. Hope on your visit something had gone wrong and it hasn't changed for good

Dishoom, if you want an indian chain then serve actual indian food!!!! Especially when competing with cheaper places like bundobust serving proper indian food.

@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!

Wagamama was amazing when it first opened. That's the original one in Bloomsbury, about 30 years ago. It's nothing like that now.

I remember Byron’s being really good at first too! That was before a load of burger places saturated the market and undercut them. They’re nowhere near as good as they first were ten years or so ago.

Giggling squad

@Wallabyone agree about Park Row. The service was excellent and it was fun as a one-off for the novelty value, but it was expensive and the food was nice but nothing special.

Which Wahaca did you go to?

Waterloo. I'd been looking forward to it because the menu looked interesting. It wasn't good in any way.

Kerridges at the Corinthia in London. The worst food I’ve ever had.

The Ivy bistros around the country are generally nice but the original Ivy in Covent Garden was appalling. Crummy food and awful service. It was really dreadfulness complained and they couldn’t care less. Never again.

Ellen’s Stardust Diner in NY.
Everyone raved about going there. They made us wait over an hour and let couples in. Dumped us upstairs, weren’t attentive, completely false to us, ordered food that was overcooked and dry. Yes, the entertainment was good, but that was it. I could’ve bought tickets to a Broadway show instead.
Sorry to everyone that’s had a great experience, but for us it was hideous 🤷🏼‍♀️

@TheHuntingoftheSnark Brown's is a chain though, isn't it? Rather than fine dining (I’m not being a snob, I went there for my graduation lunch with my parents!).

Quod in Oxford is very nice.

@TheHuntingoftheSnark

Browns in Oxford. Fucking awful. Snooty service, barely edible food that looked like it been pushed out of a plastic bag and microwaved.

Oh, that reminds me of the worst meal I’ve ever had (clearly I’d tried to erase it from my memory): Browns in Windsor.

We were a group and we walked through the nice part of the restaurant to what can only be described as “the crap bit at the back”. Long tables crammed in together, to the point that that waiting staff couldn’t actually serve the food and they had to pass (boiling hot) plates down the table. Every now and then lout “Happy birthday” would blare over the speakers like we were in Hen Party Hell. The loos were filthy and at least one of the hand basins was cracked.

And the food? Easily the worst I’ve ever had. I don’t know what you do to pork belly to make it have the texture of glue but they managed it. It was an event for a friend so I didn’t want to make a fuss at the time, but I wrote a letter of complaint afterwards and, to be fair, they refunded the meal in full.

It was unforgivably bad.

Jamie's Italian, Cambridge. I didn't realise it was possible to be pretentious about a child's burger order. We asked for it without tomato or mayo I think and they said it wasn't possible as the chef was 'hand crafting them' ???!!! So that guy over there I can see assembling the elements then, he can't remember to leave one out?! Tatty tables and bog off Jamie with your 'enter and exit via the piles of overpriced merch' policy.

@PlausibleSuit

Yeah I don't like Tattu either. The one here in Edinburgh is very... bridge and tunnel.

Any London restaurant that's sold on 'the view' is universally terrible, in my opinion. Duck & Waffle (there's one of those coming to Edinburgh now, god help us), Oxo Tower, Windows at Galvin or whatever its called now -- all exceptionally underwhelming.

Duck & Waffle was particularly awful. I got quite Janice and Ray about it all. 'Duck... on a waffle. Waffle, wi' duck on it. The dirty, robbin' bastards.'

Yes! Duck & Waffle is nothing more than an overpriced Harvester for tourists and Instagrammers.

I actually ate at the Oxo Tower last week. The menu is somewhere between horribly dated and plain awful. There was nothing I wanted to eat. I had tried my best to steer my date into choosing somewhere else but he was keen on going here. Halfway through dinner he admitted it was a bad choice.

As a vegetarian, I am frequently disappointed when eating out. Restaurants which particularly disappointed both me and my meat-munching companions include The Ivy (original), Veeraswamy, German Gymnasium, Galvin La Chapelle, and Betty’s in York.

[quote BalladOfBarryAndFreda]@sashh, I ate at Adams before it moved (when it forts opened) and whilst the food was great, it was like eating in a mortuary. White, stark dining room an absolute ringing silence. Awful. Much prefer Purnell’s, cosier, more welcoming feel and lovely menu, the only problem is he doesn’t change it often enough.[/quote]
It's a lovely dining room now, mainly white but with warm tones and cushions, and we had a chat with the people at the next table who were also celebrating a birthday.

not restaurant - but a friend really wanted to go for cocktails in the American Bar at the Savoy.
The staff wer surly, it was hideously expensive and too dark to read the cocktail menu.

Is it ever possible to get a decent meal in a chain restaurant?

@speakout

Is it ever possible to get a decent meal in a chain restaurant?

Both Busaba, Byron and Wagamama were excellent and welcome additions when they were new to the scene. Now, not so much. I think once private equity firms buy up restaurants and (over) expand them to the degree the market is over-saturated, that's when they quality rapidly declines.

Pizza Express is another example.

@speakout

Is it ever possible to get a decent meal in a chain restaurant?

I’ve never had a bad meal in a Bill’s or Wagamama We have a chain of pubs locally with around 12 branches which is always excellent and consistent

So yes, I think it is

Wagamama is dire. I have been to several branches- all pale imitations of real Asian food.

I really like Wagamama - what do I know!

Wagamama!