Julie's review of Anchor & Hope

It's so disappointing to see a good place go bad.
I've been to this place countless times over the last few years and have many great memories of the food here…slow cooked lamb that collapses in your mouth in heap of sticky flavour, deep black risotto laced with pearly strips of cuttlefish, perfectly cooked rib of beef, oozing reddy pink juices into a slick of bearnaise sauce…i could go on and on. But i won't. After years of consistently great dining experiences here, Saturday night came as a real shock. The starters were ok – the risotto was over salted – but this could be forgiven. It was the main course chaos that followed that was a disaster. 3 of us ordered the English Lop “cooked like boar” and were promptly delivered 3 hunks of luke warm, dry, stringy old sow languishing in a puddle of mash. The Hereford beef was also a disappointment – the dried blood on its surface revealing it had been left out too long before serving, chewy to the point of being difficult to cut with a steak knife, it was served with a potato concoction that looked like it had been chiselled out of the bottom of a burnt cooking pot.

So we complained. The waitress called over the manager who, going into a routine that looked a little too well practiced, quickly whisked our dishes away and thrust menus back at us, commanding us to choose again. No choice of a replacement (of the same) dish, or of simply not charging for the main and proceeding to desert. I don't recall hearing any apology. The paltry food and the manager's poor attitude prompted us to call it a day at this point. He then delivered a bill from which he had removed only two of the unsatisfactory mains. When we disputed this he started to argue back until he realised we had no intention of paying for any of the mains. To his credit at this point he did waive the whole bill.

So we walked out. And then came the coup de grace. As we filed out through the narrow gap that leads from the dining room back to the bar, the final member of our party heard one of the waiters say to the manager, “Are they from the North?” I'm really not sure what to make of this. Yes, some of our party were “from the North”. But I wasn't aware on a restriction on Northern diners in the Waterloo area, nor have I come across any regional stereotyping concerning a disproportionate number of restaurant complaints emanating from beyond the Watford Gap.

I can only conclude after this visit that the restaurant must have changed hands or had a complete change of team. Unfortunately it's a rude, regionally prejudiced team, who are unaware of the basics of restaurant service and who clearly can't cook.