The best restaurants serving Mediterranean food in Ellesmere Urban Shropshire West Midlands

The online booking system via ‘Open Table‘ works and we were greeted and shown to our table on arrival. The room was nice and warm and we received menus swiftly. When we were asked for our drinks choice, we decided on 2 cocktails and a bottle of red Greek wine. I chose the most expensive wine and was told that they didn’t have any left. So I asked for the next best Greek red wine to be told that they don’t have any because they were waiting for a delivery. As we were about to order the Meat Meze for 4 people (a Tapas-style menu with a variety of dishes), we did not want white wine with it and also did not want to order any non-Greek wine, which would have defeated the object. Since the only one left now was the Greek house red, we went for that. The cocktails, according to our 2 ladies at the table, were delicious but small but the house red was in a bottle without any label and tasted thin and instantly forgettable. The first course of the Meze arrived promptly and comprised of Greek salad, pitta breads and dips (hummus, tzatziki and tahini), which all looked nice and seemed freshly made. The pitta bread was nice, warm and fluffy. This was followed by a course of dolmades (rice-filled vine leaves), meatballs and butterbeans in tomato sauce. So far, so good but unfortunately this is where the positives ended for me. By that time the Greek music blaring from the loudspeaker was loud enough to compete with our conversation. The music had also switched from melodic instrumental Greek music to some woman and man singing songs in an agitated voice that suggested to us that some tragedy must have happened!! Then a bowl of chips arrived but nothing else, so we were waiting for the main meat dish of chicken and pork skewers and sausages. Time to contemplate the decoration in the room: If we were looking forward to some nice Greek-style décor, we had clearly chosen the wrong time to go, as the room was full of Halloween stuff mixed with leftover decoration from (brace yourselves) the Munich Oktoberfest (beer festival in Germany)!! The first ‘thing’ to arrive (before the meat dish) was the house cat, which would have been a nice authentic touch to the evening (if you have ever been to Greece, you will appreciate my sentiment) if it wasn’t in conflict with any restaurant hygiene 101. In anticipation of the meat course, the cat took up its position under our table begging for attention. The meat did arrive once we had eaten 3⁄4 of the chips (which were nice) but having eaten pork & chicken skewers in Greece many times, the chicken was on the dry side and the pork tough and hard to cut. By the time we had eaten and finished the bottle of red wine (which has zero effect on us) I was pleading with our table guests to pay up and go before my ears started bleeding due to the relentless yodelling coming from the loudspeaker. In summary: There are certain things that makes me reluctant to recommend this place. • They allow dogs as well as their own cat to roam the place. • Nobody asked if we had ever set foot into a Greek restaurant or have ever been to Greece and therefore know, how a ‘Meze’ works. • Not being able to serve Greek wine in a Greek restaurant even though, if a delivery has been delayed, they could have sourced Greek wine in the many supermarkets and wine outlets in Shrewsbury, is quite simply unforgivable!! • The décor needed to shout GREECE, not Halloween, not Germany, not . . . ! and the music needed to be BACKGROUND music and not shout at all. • The food was neither bad nor exceptional but throughout our visit nobody ever asked what we thought of it. I say ‘nobody’ . . . the reason for which might lie in the fact that we only ever saw the waitress who served us. No owner, no other staff, no cook, no Greeks!!