The best restaurants serving British food in Stoke Holy Cross South Norfolk East of England

Visited for Sunday lunch. We have been before & this time was still a pleasure. A warm greeting & it continued with the knowledgable professional staff. Their attentiveness throughout the meal, the delivering to the table those little extras of canapés & warm fresh rolls not requested… gratis..such a simple but lovely touch. The meal was lovely, I had the chicken & it was so tender, others had the pork equally as tender with a touch of crackling.I could go on but nothing disappointed. All with a lovely warm ambiance to sit unhurried to enjoy.

Unpleasant experience - clear lack of staff training and supervisor responsibility though food is very nice. The mostly teenage staff were clearly trying their best but the supervisor behaved extremely strangely, didn't seem to do much other than chat/deflect responsibility and clearly does not train her staff adequately. Problems started in the queue: the supervisor was chatting with a lady in front of us and didn't respond when we asked for help with food as we had a hungry party of 4. She waved at the display in front of her saying that's all they've got and that they're a bakery with a somewhat rude tone. She then got what looked like a large sausage roll from a heater on the back wall and gave it to the lady in front. We asked her whether we could have some of those too and she walked off saying that there are no more left (there were clearly 5-6 more in the heater), coming back to cover the front of the heater with a row of blue paper towels so we couldn't see the sausage rolls. What a weird thing to do. Next, at the till, we bought cakes but the staff member behind the till (who looked unsure about the environment and was probably new) stacked the cakes onto a single plate and remaining plates underneath, which I'd never seen before in a cafe and indicated that staff training wasn't on the top of the strange supervisor's priority list. Of course, the cakes scattered as soon as the plate was touched and thankfully the one that went on the floor was replaced without cost. Next, we waited for an espresso for 40 minutes (after the other coffees had arrived, we had asked different servers about the missing espresso 3-5 times and every group after us had been served). Other tables were cancelling orders due to slow service so my mum went up and demanded to speak to the supervisor. Initially, the supervisor wasn't keen to speak with her so sent over a teenage employee (most there) to apologise, which is just spineless - the responsibility of customer service and the running of a business falls on a supervisor. If you can't take responsibility, you shouldn't be a manager. Eventually, the supervisor came over and apologised offering cakes and using the party of 15 they had (who arrived a while after us) as an excuse for poor service. Ultimately, the staff other than the supervisor looked like they were doing their best but didn't appear to have been trained in operation of the coffee machines or other aspects of the business. I felt really sorry for the employees. What disgusted me most was that the supervisor sent the young lad over to apologise instead coming over herself. How shameful to send a junior employee to apologise for something that is your responsibility!

Having been Brasted’s devotees, this was our first visit to the restaurant at Caistor Hall and it was excellent. The whole building has been refurbished and now looks modern and welcoming. The room housing the restaurant under previous ownership was cold and underwhelming but is now a fine place to eat The menu essentially is the Brasted’s three course fine dining restaurant with good choices, good portion sizes and exceedingly well cooked. Many aspects set Brasted’s apart but one of them is the professionalism of the waiters and waitresses. Very well trained and very much appreciated. Would that other establishments aiming to operate in the fine dining arena got this important aspect right Nice to have comfortable lounges for a pre dinner drink and very nice to know that Caistor Hall is being well run and fulfilling its potential - we look forward to the result of the new extension works. Strongly recommended - best place to go