Quod Restaurant & Bar

We sat on the terrace under the big umbrellas with a light breeze. This began a wonderful visit with friends. It was busy but the service was still mostly timely and attentive. The food on offer, including the set menu, was extensive. £128 per couple including wine and service charge Gluten-free options were many.

Sadly I think we just caught this place on a bad night. The reviews are generally good and our friend is staying at the hotel and says the breakfasts are great and the service impeccable. The ambience in the restaurant was lovely and the place is immaculately appointed, but unfortunately we had a waitress who seemed brisk and brusque, plus the food just wasn’t good! It started well with the lovely manager taking time to accommodate our gluten free dietary requirements, but the food was really below par, especially considering it’s not inexpensive. The crab starter was saturated with mayonnaise and had an extra dollop of mayonnaise for added measure but with no bread to go with it. My main course of duck was overdone and the rainbow chard tasted like it hadn’t been washed it was so earthy, plus the sauce was flavourless. The turnips were replaced with roast new potatoes, without consideration that a portion of potatoes had been ordered as a side. For the others in our party of three, the fish was slightly overcooked (but still tasty apparently) and the aubergine dish still had the tops of the aubergines attached. It really just felt that perhaps the kitchen was short-staffed and inexperienced and the waitress was overwhelmed and also lacked the customer service skills needed. The restaurant was busy so one imagines it normally has a good reputation, hence us thinking that we just caught it on a bad night. We didn’t complain at the time, because sometimes it’s obvious in a restaurant when they’re not coping well and it really felt that we’d end up having to wait for food to be cooked again with little chance of it being any better.