The best restaurants in Chelmsford East of England

I recently attended an evening dinner service with my family and was rather underwhelmed. My expectations were high due to this establisment seemingly having decent reviews and on arrival the setting and service really lent itself to what I believed was going to be a wonderful evening. Unfortunatley the food was just bad. Not inedible, in fact I finished my plate of gnocci as I was pretty hungry, but just bad. My bruschetta, one of my all time favourite italian dishes, an absolute classic, was incredibly dissapointing. Just being a heap of sloppy chopped tomatoes whose delicate flavours were completley over powered by garlic on a thin slice of soggy toast. Awful. I will say that the presentation and portion sizes were very nice, but the quality and flavour in the cooking was lacking in its entirety. In terms of authenticity, centuries of culture and cooking are crying out in pain and anger as their name gets dragged through the dirt. I wasn't suprised for the carbonara to be a cream based sauce, thats pretty typical in Britain as it is a mild technical skill to pull off a classic carbonara and get it to the table. But even so it was just so heavy and flavourless that my sister couldn't even finish it and after I tried some, I couldn't blame her. I will say the Oysters were nice with a fun presentation, Mersea oysters are lovely. But lets face it, all they had to do there was open them and put them on a bed of ice. No cooking involved. I wasn't going to bother writing a review, bad food is bad food and I usually don't bother, but thought I would check them out in more detail incase we were just unlucky and had come on a bad evening. What I didnt expect to see was the sheer volume of bile, vitriol and belittling present in the responses to the honest comments and reviews of people that seemed to have a very similar experience to mine. At that point I thought it pertinent to ensure more voices are heard. I await your incoming tantrum with amusement and hope it comforts you that your imbecilic, emoji filled response will certainly trouble me for the rest of my days. The horror. Don't bother about telling me not to come back. You don't need to state the obvious. If you ever do find it within the grasp of your ego to listen to some constructive criticism, please look to the following. Make better food. You have a nice setting, decent staff and clearly some of the ingrediants you are using are of good quality. You have all the potential for something pretty special. Send your chefs to Italy, find some nice little local restaurants and find some inspiration to move forwards with. Because honestly I've had better pasta at a Wetherspoons at twice the quality and a 1/5th of the price.

Wow Wow Wow their food is insane!! We had the roast sharing platters for £24pp and they were so worth the money! It wasn’t even just the food it was the service that came with it you feel part of there family being there. It was our first time here and definitely not the last we loved that Ruth and the team took their time to actually talk with us and checked up on us at every point they could. We cannot wait to come back Thankyou so much we left the hub very happy!

Popped in yesterday for lunch & received an extremely warm welcome from the attentive staff. We ordered a homemade pie each. My husband, as always, was rather sceptical about the pie, but we were both pleasantly surprised by the contents. I have never had a pie with so much meat, I actually ended up taking leftovers home for our dog! It was absolutely delicious & worth every penny. Pay them a visit, you won’t be disappointed!

Having done a Taste Test in August at Taz- which was great - I bought 14 lady friends to celebrate a Big Birthday for one. Super meal - everyone agreed! - super friendly staff - everyone agreed! Lovely atmosphere - everyone agreed! - thank you all for making it a special day !

Read on Chelmsford City face book page, this was the best Indian in Chelmsford and looked at the reviews on line to find the same. Food is the best Indian takeaway in Chelmsford 9 out 10 as you forgot one of our mint sauces otherwise it would have been 10/10

Recommended as a quick place for supper before the Theatre . Did not disappoint ! Super friendly staff - fast service - fresh & tasty food - hidden gem in plain sight in Victoria Road New Street end just down from the station near the Traffic lights. Give it a try 🎉

Fantastic pre booked afternoon tea of cakes and sandwiches with plain scones . Originally booked for 4 people but extra person came as well and as we had let them know the day before it was sorted out fine. The food was lovely and so much for £12.95 a head. Service was excellent and very efficient. Would definitely book again.

This cafe was so lovely! From the beautiful decor to the fab service, me and my mum were so impressed! We were both served quickly- we had toasties and a hot drink each, which tasted delicious, and the plates that the food was served on had a lovely flowery design. Also, the toilets were clean and nicely decorated.

Another brilliant meal. Fantastic cooking by Andrea. Best Italian cooking this side of the Alps. And his team were absolutely wonderful.l

We visited The Aviary for the first time at the end of the August.It was lovely.We wondered if we had just been lucky or if such fantastic food is par for the Course. Therefore we returned in October and I can report that it was no fluke and this restaurant is really special. Since our first visit it has been refurbished and also created a separate room acting as a bar serving light food. We stayed with the beautifully appointed restaurant and chose from their special lunch menu which is very good value at £ 25 for three courses and offers a number of choices with a diverse range of options. I started with the satay chicken with peanut sauce.In common with all the courses the presentation was superb.The chicken was very moist and the sauce was excellent.My wife opted for the avocado prawn and was surprised and happy that not only did it taste nice but the serving was most generous. We both had calves liver and crispy bacon served with a jus,mashed potato and broccoli.It was perfect.Every component of the dish was clearly made with such care and creativity.The sauce was enjoyably rich with a hint of sweetness.The chef clearly cares about the food he produces and succeeds with flying colours. For dessert we could choose any from the a la carte menu.I chose to have the banana bread pudding which was very nice and bananary ! My wife had sticky toffee pudding serviced with vanilla ice cream which she thought fabulous but she said it would have tasted even better if served with custard. The waitress whose name we found out to be Egle was brilliant.She made us feel very welcome,was very efficient and helpful and also had a lovely personality.She was proof of how important a server or manager is. A restaurant close by still very good but not as good as The Aviary had a great manager but she left and her departure left a real void. The Aviary is very fortunate indeed to have such a brilliant employee. We only have one concern and that is in trying to offer changes on the lunch menu more regularly some great dishes are taken off like the Atlantic cod.No doubt the calves liver will be replaced in time which would be sad as rather surprisingly it is not offered on the a la carte menu. It so happens that both our visits have been at lunch time.We are planning to go in the evening too.The prices for the evening are certainly no higher than those for the other high end restaurants indeed maybe slightly less. All in all The Aviary is a stunning restaurant both aesthetically and with the quality of the food.It is one of those rare places where you know you are going to be a regular after the first bite of food.

Central Park Cafe is such a beautiful place filled with such kind and passionate staff. It’s the perfect location to bring your furry friends and I am not joking when I say that your dog will be treated like royalty! Their coffee and food is fabulous, nothing is ever too much trouble and the constant smiles on all of the girls faces just says it all. Special mention to Katie the business owner who never fails to brighten up my mornings!! X - Han

I went for a light lunch with my 11 year old daughter who wanted to try sushi in a restaurant rather than a supermarket & we were not disappointed. We had Gyoza & king prawn tempura which were both lovely & shared nigiri for main which gave a lot of variety. It’s definitely worth paying the extra than supermarket and we will be back when we need our next sushi fix as I see they deliver too!

Super street food, quality ingredients, served with a smile... What's not to like? 👍🏻 Happy to recommend and will be ordering again.

Best carribean food in Chelmsford! Always bang on!

Very poor experience nearly 1hr waiting for food and there was two other people in there. Food come up warm to cold. The sticky tables, VERY OVER PRICED