The Stafford Restaurant

I haven't stayed at the Stafford but visited their restauarant on recommendation during my recent vacation. The food was severely over priced and service was presented with an extreme grudge. A sheer waste of money. Especially since there wasn't any natural daylight or music. No atmosphere whatsoever! The restaurant was empty - that really should have said everything! PB
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Polly Brown
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Sunday, July 29, 2007

We stayed at the recently renovated Stafford Mews and had dinner and breakfast at the hotel's restaurant.

Whilst the hotel was fine, I'll be honest, we were quite disappointed with the food.

Whilst a starter I had (scallops) was reasonably good, the rest didn't live up to the standard we had been led to expect.

My main meal which was beef with some potatoes and mushrooms was horrible. Truly horrible. It was the saltiest thing I have ever eaten. The beef tasted like it had been rolled in salt, cooked, then seasoned again. The mushrooms, which had a very odd texture, were also very salty, and the potatoes were, yes, you guessed it...salty!

My partner's starter of caesar salad was too big and was more lettuce than anything else and his main, the dish recommended by one of the staff - Dover Sole, was salty!

The saving grace was the white choc cheesecake pud, which although not salty (phew), was heavy and very rich, but still ok.

In the morning when we had our breakfast at the restaurant, we had scrambled eggs and salmon. My eggs were way too salty (again), the salmon was fine but nothing better than I could buy from Waitrose. The toast was soggy.

My partner had the same as me, but only in name. His scrambled eggs looked more like they were originally an omelette and then turned into something resembling scrambled eggs - they were stringy and full of cheese!

We were unsure if it's because we have yokel tastes and don't believe in heavily seasoning our food, but when one woman of very fine breeding trilled - 'waiter, what HAVE they done to these mushrooms, they taste of salt' we decided maybe we weren't in the wrong.

Stick with starters and puds in the evening if you must eat there and just ask for a coffee for breakfast...
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Overall rating
Food 1 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 1
Monday, July 09, 2007