Fig & Thistle

My daughter is coeliac and I’m GF so I did a bit of research before booking this restaurant. I called to check the burgers were definately GF and was assured they were. I also noted dietary requirements on the booking. We placed our order for 2 burgers only to be told that there were no GF buns. We decided to go ahead with the order as we had a theatre booking later that evening and it would have been awkward to find another restaurant. The waitress advised she would arrange for some “extra chips” with the burger. When the food arrived it was almost comical the tiny burger had been hidden between 2 bits of little gem lettuce it looked like it was hiding its embarrassment! The burger was dry and tasteless the chips were at least hot but if that was extra I’d hate to see a normal portion. When asked if everything was ok with our me I said no. No effort had been made to try and elevate the bun less burger. Maybe a bit tomato, onion, cucumber would have been a start. £17.00 for a dry burger a small bowl of chips and a handful of leaves was awful. We spoke to the manager who was unaware they had ran out of GF bread he offered a discounted price and a dessert. We felt he was lacking basic knowledge of what coeliac disease actually us as he offered vegan icecream having just ordered a burger we are not vegan ! I feel the chef and management need to review their food intolerance options. I fear the chips were also fried in the normal frier where gluten products are cooked as later that night my daughter had some mild side effects from having eaten gluten. A bit more education in the kitchen I think. In the end we were given 10% of the bill and our drinks free but it still felt very steep at £30.00 for an awful meal. Waiting staff were very nice and we felt sorry for them having to bring out such a pathetic plate of good.

We ate here based off the great reviews. When I was asking the waiter questions about the food she just kept saying she didn’t know, I eventually just had to google what things were. My husband has an egg allergy and somehow they mixed up the allergy and applied it to my dish as well. I ordered the burger and it came out on gluten free bread (which was hard and did not look appetizing) and without the burger condiments. So it was basically a meat patty between two stale pieces of sliced bread. It took forever to get the attention of a waiter. When I finally asked for it to be prepared the way it was supposed to be, the waiter came back and said the chef said no and walked away before I could get a word out. By this point my husband had finished his dinner since it took forever to flag down a waiter in the first place. My husbands dish was good (the Salmon) but unfortunately not good enough to overshadow the slow inattentive service and the chef refusing to fix the dish. I would not come back and can’t honestly recommend this place.