Samphire Reviews Summary

Food Quality

Pros:

• "The service, the quality and the taste of the food was all outstanding."
• "The Focaccia was a perfect balance of crispy and soft, complemented by the roasted garlic."
• "The food was excellent. This is not the cheapest restaurant in the world but worth every penny."
• "The food is absolutely fantastic... even the seasonal greens that we ordered as sides were drool worthy."
• "The oysters I tried were super fresh and to my liking."
• "We enjoyed some really great quality fish dishes."
• "The food was absolutely divine and portion sizes were great."

Cons:

• "Overall the meals were pretty heavy on the salt."
• "Patchy food and very ordinary service."
• "The wine was bad and overpriced."
• "Food was very disappointing, mussels weren’t fresh and had to be sent back, pork was over cooked and chewy, gnocchi was very average."
• "The broccoli accompanying the Hogget lamb was very salty and inedible."
• "The main dish was smth very weird and tasteless.. I ordered the skate, that was overfried, super dry and oversalted."
• "As non meat eaters we chose the Gnocchi, which came on a bed of bland and tasteless green velouté sauce the gnocchi itself was unlike any we have had before, like little balls of deep fried mashed potato, again with no seasoning."

Service

Pros:

• "Fantastic service from our delightful waitress."
• "The staff were very friendly and attentive."
• "They managed to find a space for us last-minute."
• "Had a delicious meal, and the staff and service was first class."
• "Staff - brilliant, couldn’t fault the service."
• "Really appreciated the attentive and knowledgeable staff."
• "The service was amazing - very caring and attentive staff that handled any requests."

Cons:

• "Service seemed chaotic and badly managed."
• "Unfortunately we were forgotten about once sat down and waited for drinks."
• "Service is not that great, left unused glasses and used glasses/bottles on the table."
• "The staff already seemed stressed. They were not welcoming and service was slow."
• "The waitress seated us and then we got totally ignored by all 3 staff waiting on, one being the manager."
• "Staff also sat behind us swearing at one another which ruined the atmosphere for us."
• "Staff are lovely but rushing around like headless chickens."

Value

Pros:

• "The Set lunch menu for the price I thought was very good and tasty."
• "Drinks were reasonably priced and the cocktail 'lemon sherbet' was a bit of a revelation to me."
• "Bill was £70 for lunch for 2 adults and 2 kids. Portions were generous."
• "Reasonable prices for most dishes."
• "Great menu and High quality products for a fair price."
• "Delicious food, keenly priced."
• "Fair prices, nice ambience."

Cons:

• "We both had soft drinks and bread as a starter but it should not be costing nearly £90 with a service charge."
• "Fish pie seemed a bit overpriced."
• "It’s very expensive for what you get."
• "The £24 fish pie had hardly any fish in it."
• "Over priced, the fish tasteless and full of bones."
• "45 quid with no sides seem like quite a rip-off to be quite honest."
• "A 10% service charge added to separate drinks as well which was cheeky."

Atmosphere

Pros:

• "The atmosphere was cozy & romantic."
• "Lovely decor and handwritten chalk boards displaying the weekly menu."
• "Nice atmosphere."
• "The ambiance was equally welcoming."
• "Great atmosphere - chatty but not too loud to have a conversation."
• "Very pleasant and cozy place to sit and enjoy the meal! Atmosphere overall very nice too."
• "The restaurant setting is perfect."

Cons:

• "Cosy atmosphere but a solitary toilet for all diners is totally insufficient."
• "The loud music and the screeching kids didn’t help and we didn’t stay for dessert."
• "We were sat by the till so the atmosphere was not 5*."
• "We were sat in a corridor from the kitchen and the blackboard was behind 2 of us, so to see it we had to turn our heads."
• "They gave us the seat next to the cash counter, so noisy and so bad with social distance as all waitresses were there all the time."
• "Overall doesn't really justify the price and previous praise."
• "We were seated in a sort of wide corridor area...felt a bit rushed."