The Orange Tree

We visited The Orange Tree for Sunday lunch on my fiance's 30th birthday. We were relieved to be seated in a smaller dining area away from the clattery bigger eating area, but thought it had been decorated intelligently inside to make it as light and airy as possible. The starters - fois gras was fantastic but it all went a little wrong after that. Initally they had lost our names on the reservations list so we had to wait for a while until that was sorted out. We sat down to eat at 1.30pm but we didn't get our main course until about 3.10pm! The drinks took ages to arrive and the main course was very disappointing - I had fish and chips, the fish was very greasy and my boyfriend has risotto, which he said was also pretty disappointing. Not bad for a local put but wouldn't go back in a hurry - especially when all that worked out to about 25 quid a head (no alcohol).
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Frances Cook
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 4
Tuesday, June 06, 2006

I went to The Orange Tree for Dinner on Saturday Night with my husband for the first time. We could not fault the food, although the service was a little hit and miss, but what I can complain about is the seating arrangements, whilst I am quite hapy to look at my husband, I did not appreciate being seated behind a brick wall, with only each other to look at the whole evening! So why is it that if you go out in two's you are treated like second class citizens?
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Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 5 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 4
Monday, March 27, 2006

simple great, relaxed and very funky. Beter than the rest of them in the same chain
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Nigel Walsh
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 9
Friday, March 03, 2006

We've been twice now - once for Sunday lunch and just now for dinner. A very welcome upgrade from it's previous pubby incarnation.

Not so family friendly (children aren't allowed to do colouring, for fear of damaging the unfinished wooden tables), which is probably good news for those adults who are child-averse.

The Sunday lunch was remarkable in that they managed to do a roast beef that was really tolerably decent. We particularly enjoyed the desserts.

The dinner was very good indeed.

- A starter of seared scallops with the inevitable haricots blanc was good. GOOD

- The spit chicken was moist and served with well cooked chips with a generous dollop of mayonnaise. V.GOOD

- A monkfish special (wrapped in parma ham, on top of fondant potato) was quite beautiful to look at, but a little disappointingly unbalanced (the monkfish was a bit on the dry side and the ham dominated). GOOD

- A dessert of apple crumble with cinnamon ice-cream impressed me, but my wife found the al-dente apple too hard for her taste. V.GOOD

We really liked the ambience of the place and the service was excellent. The wine list is pretty decent, with a particularly low markup on Dom Perignon (I wonder how many of the well-heeled locals go for that?). We went for the rose (a dry pinot grigio) which was the sort of rose that people who don't like rose would probably go for. This was on the strength of a recommendation from our waiter, who let us try a bit first (a nice touch).

This is one of a chain, but I get the feeling that the chef is in control of the kitchen here and knows his stuff.
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Alexander Lake
Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 7
Wednesday, February 15, 2006