My first visit to the deck was not a particularly good one and it doesn’t make me want to return. I felt the food was mediocre, I has scallops to start which to be fair were tasty but the lamb for my main course was tasteless and tough, I had to leave several pieces because they were full of gristle and I had the embarrassment of having to spit some out into my napkin because I just couldn’t chew it. I had difficulty cutting it which was partly because of the gristle and partly because the knife was so blunt, I couldn’t cut the leeks either, so maybe steak knives would be better. We didn’t have a pudding. The staff seemed untrained although pleasant. I asked for a gin that was displayed on the bar, to be told by the waitress that they didn’t have any, later I saw a waiter pour from that bottle on the bar to serve another customer. My water glass had a large crack in it so I asked for it to be replaced but the replacement was also cracked, the waitress didn’t notice either of these so my husband went and helped himself to a new glass from the bar. My husband had mussels and when the waiter brought the bowl for shells and the finger bowl, the finger bowl was inside the shell bowl and they were just left on the table like that, it was difficult to separate them and my husband ended up spilling the water from the finger bowl. We asked the waiter if it could be cleaned up and he just left a few napkins on the table to blot up the water, I ended up mopping it up myself and also wiping the water from the floor. We also noticed that the waiting staff were placing drinks on the table by holding their hand over the top of the glasses resulting in their fingers going on the area to drink from, this is a particular bug bear of mine but in these days of extra caution I think this should be basic training for waiting staff. When we came to pay the bill we thought we would leave a tip even though we weren’t happy because the staff had been working hard but found we were unable to add it to our card payment. The waitress told us that it was because it was a small company, she then said there were over 60 staff members so it would be difficult to to allocate a share of the tips to everyone. Both of these reasons didn’t make sense to us and as we, like others, don’t carry much cash nowadays, we had to leave without giving a tip.

Not the best welcome. Told we couldn’t sit outside as busy - then tables remained empty, service was then slow so disappointed. The previous day was much more welcoming and accommodating. Different manager.