The best restaurants serving Brasserie food in Ipswich East of England

This was one of the best Sunday roasts I have ever had The meat and vegables where cooked to perfection

My colleagues, friends and I always love to go to this restaurant to celebrate birthdays and special occassion. They have good food, however we will not come back again for the CUSTOMER SERVICE that we had. It was my leaving do. I reserved a table and made a deposit for 12 people (£10/person), unfortunately 8 people only arrived as people were sick (we are all nurses from the hospital). Even though we consumed food that was good for 12 people and the restaurant was not as full on that night, they charged us £40 for the people who did not come in and said that it was for the reservation. My colleagues spoke to the manager, who was resistant and argumentative, saying that the deposit cannot be refunded or used for people who did not attend. Hence, they will be keeping it. It was quite a long discussion until one of my senior colleagues spoke to him, and gave back our deposit. The waitresses were rude and not understanding either, after the discussion happened they did not stop badgering me about the deposit. One waitress apologised to her friend’s friend, who is one of my colleagues, however she did not stop talking and staring until I left. I had a wonderful and memorable dinner with my colleagues, however it ended up badly on how we got treated on this restaurant when a problem arised.

I have been visiting this particular restaurant for years and it has always been good. Unfortunately this time I visited it was terrible. The restaurant has been declining for a while and this last visit on 27th October is likely to be my last one. When we got there I observed that the restaurant was only about 35% full. It was a Sunday evening and is to be expected. We were placed at a table and given menus. After about 15 minutes nobody had come back to even ask if we wanted drinks or to take our order. We went back to the main desk and asked to be moved to a different table stating that we were being forgotten. The staff said we weren't, it was just that a big table in the other end of the restaurant had been monopolising their time. I looked and this was only a table of 8 people - not exactly huge. Finally we were asked for our order, which was taken. We had been in the restaurant about 20 minutes by now. The restaurant was very cold and a lot of people were complaining. At one point the duty manager asked my wife to move so she could reach the temperature controls. Unbelievably these are located up high on a column. The manager had to reach them by standing on the seat! When done she didn't even wipe the seat where she had been standing, which was where my wife was originally sitting. We were given bowls for the salad bar. When I got there everything was very depleted. Some things had completely run out. All the sauces were empty. Appalling. We were then becoming acutely aware of the female chef standing at front of house. She was being loud, crashing around, talking constantly at full volume and flirting with other staff members. She was knocking back Red Bull like there was no tomorrow. I think she must have been on acid or something. It was making the atmosphere very uncomfortable. Even the other staff were complaining about her! After about another half an hour there was no sign of our meals. They again seemed to be concentrating solely on the 'big' table of 8. Food for this table was coming out sporadically and was being lined up on the counter for collection. Some of the plates were sitting there for at least 10 minutes with people walking past, the mad chef talking constantly and breathing all over them. I don't know about anyone else, but when a plate is ready I would expect it to be taken straight to the table. I was shocked. We were there for 50 minutes in total and this charade seemed never ending. By the end of it we were thoroughly pissed off with the atmosphere, staff attitude, lack of attention and having been there for 50 minutes with no sign of food in a restaurant that was only at 35% capacity. I also observed other customers being ignored in a similar manner. At this point we had had enough and got up and walked out. The staff weren't even apologetic - it was almost like they were glad to see the back of us. The whole experience was shocking. It was a Sunday evening and I get the impression that the staff didn't care and just wanted to get home. The salad bar being practically empty is also unacceptable - I expect to have the same level of service at any time of the week, as we are being charged the same amount regardless. The staff looked scruffy too. Many tables were not properly cleaned. This whole experience was dreadful and has completely put me off eating out. Shame on you Harvester - continue like this and you'll be out of business.

Back in March I had a delivery from this company, when it turned up a portion of fries was missing and a burger was badly burnt, since then I've been fobbed off constantly while trying to get a refund, they clearly do not care about customers , the worst customer service I've ever experienced