For context last night was the fourth time we have eaten at The Royal over the last three months and the three previous visits have been very enjoyable with great food and service, unfortunately last night was a different experience. We booked at 7pm on a busy Saturday and had a short wait for the table to be ready but only a couple of minutes. We were shown to the table by a pleasant young man and our order was taken in good time by a lady I took to be a supervisor. We shared a starter and when our mains were delivered by a third waiter, a much taller young man, I asked for some mustard to accompany my steak. He brought a pot with about half a teaspoonful of mustard so I asked for some more, he seemed to take umbrage at this and rather sullenly brought an overfilled pot which overflowed onto the table. He then addressed my partner, who is easily old enough to be his mother, as 'Darling'. We both made him aware, politely, that we thought this was inappropriate. He seemed to disagree and didn't apologise so we made the supervisor aware. To her credit she did apologise, as did the restaurant manager and the surly waiter did not come near us for the rest of the night. The main courses were both excellent but when we opted to share a sweet the 'Creme Anglais', or custard to a Lancastrian, was stone cold. After about 20 minutes trying to flag down a waiter to get the custard replaced we gave up on the sweet and paid the bill (less the sweet) and left rather disappointed. Despite the fact that the majority of the food was excellent the attitude of the taller waiter and the fact that something as simple as providing hot custard proved an issue has left a sour taste and we will be trying other restaurants before we return to the The Royal.
Excellent
57 Reviews