Innonthepond Reviews 2

My friend and I went here for lunch and had a great meal. The lady who served us was absolutely brilliant. Nothing was too much trouble. She had a vibrant personality and was great to talk to. The food was excellent: a very generous, delicious portion of scampi to start, followed by belly pork cooked to perfection and finally, sticky toffee pudding. This is one of my favourite desserts, but I seldom have it when dining out because it’s often just a toffee flavoured sponge with a little bit of treacle, which is not STP. However, this one was the real McCoy, complete with sticky dates - scrumptious! I would definitely go there again.

Oh Dear! What a difference 2 weeks can make. 😌 My daughter (who lives in Farringdon), and I, visited on 21st April and had a lovely meal in a very pleasant environment. Fantastic, we thought, somewhere lovely that we can get to easily from Merstham station, and it accommodates dogs. So, when my daughter and her partner came for a visit on Friday 3rd May, we rushed to get there in plenty of time (kitchen closes at 20.00), and arrived at 19.15 having already read the menu and having decided on our meals. Unfortunately this was a completely different dining experience. No-one came to take our drinks order so we had to go looking for a member of staff. We found the staff having a very sociable time - with each other- but with no-one engaging with the customers to ensure all was in order. Our waiter was lovely but clearly inexperienced and getting absolutely no support from the 'team'. Two of our mains were incorrect, and after a 20 minute wait for the missing portions of chips, we decided that we wouldn't bother because we had eaten the rest of the meal. Our desserts were very obviously micro-waved - not a problem - but were delivered to our table in stages, and the final plate of sticky toffee pudding was returned because it was cold. Desserts that had been specifically ordered with custard were delivered with ice cream. 😕 It was now 21.15 and so we decided not to push our luck and didn't have coffees. When my husband, and then my daughter, approached what appeared to be a more senior member of staff, his response to their concerns was blasé and very unsupportive of his team - throwing the chef and the waiter under the proverbial bus, in front of customers, is not the best way to manage a customer service situation. We alluded to Fawlty Towers all evening, and fully expected Manuel from Barcelona to show up, but after a while the farcical humour of the situation wore very thin and spoiled our family get-together.
Such a shame - but we'll definitely be swerving this 'restaurant' (unless the owners take control of the situation and engage in a very robust training session with the staff).