Reviews in Essex

I had been here once before and liked it, but not this time. In some of the chicken dishes (the sweet and sour and satay chicken - don't know about the rest as I didn't try all chicken dishes), the 'chicken' seemed a weird clear white colour and was stringy and greasy; it was so disgusting and left rest of it. Most dishes seem to have nuts in which didn't need to have nuts in, such as chicken wings, thereby limiting the choice of things my children could have. Even though the restaurant was practically empty, they did not clear our plates, resulting in them stacking up on table. There was a weird public toiletty bleach smell near the kitchen area. As soon as you get into the restaurant, they tell you to pay and demand to know at the till what drink you want. It would be more appropriate to allow people to sit down and have time to look at the drinks menu, then expecting people to know what drinks you have. Or at the very least, if you want it paid upon entry, at least say something like, 'would you like to look at our drinks menu now (and point people in direction of said menu) or would you like to come back to bar once you've had a few minutes to decide. I don't think this is good value for money; the food quality has seriously gone downhill; perhaps switching to poor quality ingredients in order to maximize profits and take advantage of customers. I won't be back.

First time here definitely would not return. The food was luke warm and the meat (chicken) seemed undercooked and squidgy. Tried a little bit of various things but all tasted strange. Dessert choice was poor and chocolate fountain is unpleasant - very strange colour and watery. We left without eating much of anything and got food elsewhere . We did tell the manager our feedback. Very expensive mistake.

Had a lovely lunch! The food was really tasty, the cakes looked amazing but we didn’t have room for more. We weren’t hurried at all and we sat and chatted for two hours!! Thank you The staff were very friendly too. I will definitely be back

As always, we had a great experience at The Barn Cafe. The breakfast was excellent and it was hard to choose from such a varied and interesting menu. Can't wait to visit again soon.

Another wonderful afternoon at the Dukes. Roast was delicious as always!

Excellent lunchtime visit. Helpful staff and top steak and ale pie. Enjoyable relaxed atmosphere in a wonderful village pub.

Very basic restaurant more like school canteen with plastic plates and warm food. Massive catering with little effort. Very tired seats. Won’t be going back.

Food has always been good although overpriced. Unfortunately today we felt the food was extremely overpriced. Buddha bowl with chicken £20 and im sure theses bowls have got smaller, not a substantial portion. The garden salad really was a joke, it came on what I would describe as a slightly larger than average side plate and the salad certainly didn't fill it. With the feta cheese it was £17.50 for a basic salad that would have made a large starters!

We always enjoy our visit to the Barn Cafe. The Barn Breakfast was absolutely delicious and can highly recommend. Service can be a bit slow but we’re never in a rush. However we haven’t been for a month or so and the service had definitely improved

Have been to Grumpy’s several times now and everytime the experience is just brilliant. Staff are so welcoming and the food is just great. Definitely the best American themed diner I have been to.

Wonderful lunch had yesterday, Sweet and Sour Chicken was fabulous, sorry no photo as meal was so delicious I forgot all about taking one ! Service was superb.

Lovely Pub, excellent service, great Sunday roast. Would happily return!

The food was enjoyable, with good portion sizes and quality for the price. However, the atmosphere was extremely loud, making it difficult to have a conversation at the table. The service was also quite slow we had to follow up on our order, which wasn’t ideal as we were dining with young children who were getting very hungry.

We moved up north but visit mum oftern in Enfield, took her for dinner here on Easter Sunday. The main reason we come here is because the food is homemade and fresh. We are sick of the frozen rubbish food in most places. We are so glad to have found this Gem of a pub. All our meals were fresh and all plates were cleared. The 3 meat roast was huge and amazing. Lovely staff there, all polite and helpful, which is lovely to see. Its evident that they like working at The Owl, feels like the staff are all a little family. Management should feel quite proud, to have such lovely staff. Unfortunately we forgot to take photos as we wanted to get stuck right in, but we had: Burger chips 3 meat roast Lamb roast Shepherds pie Chicken burger chips The hallumi starter is lovely.

Another excellent Sunday lunch at the Dukes!

Lovely Sunday Roast chicken

As per usual on a very busy Sunday morning the service was excellent with polite members of staff. The food was up to its highest standards and quite swift even though it was busy. A very pleasant morning. Thanks.