The best restaurants in St Albans East of England

Nice chilled vibe with cool lighting. Really good BBQ / Smoked food, service was polite, friendly and prompt. I had the combo platter with baby back ribs, brisket burnt ends, bbq beans, fries and pickles. Was an excellent meal, good portion size, nice selection of sauces and the beer was a good pint too. 😎

Food was good and they were getting ready for Christmas 🎄. Will be going back .

Oct 2024 update: I originally rated 1/5 stars (please see below), but would like to say that the M&S Cafe is much improved now, so credit goes to the whole team there. The computer ordering system is still rather inflexible, but people are used to its limitations by now. The fiasco with mobile ordering has also been done away with, thankfully! --- The refurbished restaurant is an unmitigated disaster. Three months after reopening, the kitchen is still constantly short of food, the staff are overwhelmed and short of training. The ordering system is inflexible and doesn't tell you if an item is out of stock until you've gone to try and add it to the basket. At least with the old tills, we were able to amend items (no sauce etc). Now we're told there's simply no way to ask the kitchen for such tweaks, vastly reducing the menu available to those with allergies and particular dietary requirements. The restaurant itself is now ridiculously overcrowded. The sheer number of tables packed into the restaurant makes it impossible for people to navigate through, as well as leaving the inexperienced waiting staff roaming around looking for the right table to deliver any food that miraculously makes it out of the kitchen. Considering how long the restaurants were closed for refurbishment, it is very disappointing that more thought wasn't put into how to provide a functional dining service. We might have spent a long time queueing for food before the refurbishment, but at least once we'd ordered, the food was guaranteed to arrive promptly. Now, we can order and end up spending an eternity waiting for food that'll never arrive. If I could give this review zero stars out of five, I would.

Always able to rely on this place. Chips are never hot though. Milkshakes are very well wrapped to prevent spillages. The halloumi wrap is always my go to, would definitely recommend

Private function in the 'Barn' back room for my mates' bands, great night as always!

We booked to stay hear for the weekend after our wedding the staff was so friendly and attentive the service was amazing our room was beautiful we very much enjoyed our stay thank you so much

My friend and I had a pre theatre meal here on 10/10/24 , the staff service and atmosphere was super , we said when we ordered we were going to a show , the food was prompt and hot and delicious and the staff remembered where we were going and wished us a good evening .This was our first visit here and we look forward to comming back .

Great wagamamma, good central location, enjoyed a meal at around 6pm and there was no queue to get in, it did get busy later however. Waited under 10 minutes for our food and everything was tasty. Clean location! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I walked in because they had a special lunch menu on for 12-4pm to try it. As I used to live in St Albans when it first opened but never managed to do whenever I happened to walk past. The food is awesome, service is great, with friendly staff and management. If you happen to have allergies they have great selection for most including lots of Gluten Free choices including a nice desserts HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, but if you are coming in the evening definitely book in advance

Even though they had put a floor standing fan in the room with the windows open, it was impossible to sleep due to the noise from traffic and the fan. Ridiculously hot. The food in the attached Beefeater was awful. I had the lasagne and I swear it only had one pasta sheet. Breakfast was not great either: mushrooms stone cold, grilled tomato barely cooked, bacon had sat around so long it was chewy. They had no butter, only some form of 'spread'. Really not worth the money.

We arrived at what appeared a charming, characterful, old building. That was the highlight! Inside is the opposite and we were greeted with "your table is down there, second on the left" To give you some insight, I have been to Thailand many times, have many Thai friends and have eaten Thai cuisine with them, in Thailand and many Thai restaurants. The food we were served in the Golden Elephant is not representative of Thai food nor good, well cooked fresh food of any description. The Chinese mushrooms with bamboo shoots was in fact 3/4 of one close cupped mushroom with some very soggy out of date bamboo shoots. The Weeping Tiger that we asked to be cooked med rare was cooked until it was crispy. The chicken with ginger was slimy and bland. The sizzling seafood mix was 4 prawns and a few half scallops in a bland sauce. The aromatic duck was overcooked and nothing about it was aromatic. Each portion was small, bland, over cooked and failed to taste like fresh ingredients that were stir fried by a competent Chef. I know that my Thai friends would have sent it all back as would I if I hadn't been taken there by friends who have not before eaten good Thai food and I didn't want to offend them. There are many good Thai restaurant in Hertfordshire but stay away from this place.

Mohsin was fantastic, great service and the food was lovely.

Unfortunately this hotel has gone downhill somewhat since we visited 10 years ago. The rooms are in need of an update. It's a great location and the bar is very welcoming.

Magical place....for the palate...!!!

Very nice place. I would recommend a visit