Isle of Wight Isle of Wight
Edulis

Edulis

Ventnor Botanical Garden, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom

Soup • Salads • Cheese • Ice Cream


"We visited the gardens yesterday and decided to have a much needed lunch at the Edulis restaurant. The restaurant itself is pleasantly presented and in a lovely setting. However after sitting down we noticed the crockery and glasses were marked/dirty and perhaps we should have taken this as a hint of what was to come. Three of us ordered the soup and the other a sandwich which came with wedges. After ordering, paying and sitting down, a good 5 mins or so later we were subsequently told that actually there was no soup available and they shouldn’t have processed our order. We ordered sandwiches instead and weren’t charged for the small extra cost. Our sandwiches arrived minus the advertised wedges. The waiter said nothing and was about to walk away when we queried the absence of the wedges. He responded that there were none available and they had been substituted with crisps. A few measly crisps and a rather bland cheese and tomato sandwich I have to say. We vowed not to return, but just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse a large tray of potatoes was brought in from the kitchen and one of the servers proceeded to start chopping them up in front of us presumably to make wedges!! The toilets were smelly and not very pleasant and we noticed the glazing in the lobby areas was absolutely filthy. A very disappointing experience that we will not be repeating. Such a shame as this could be a lovely restaurant if someone actually bothered to care and respect their customers. Instead it appears to be a complete shambles where custom is taken for granted as they effectively have a captive audience. Next time we’ll be taking our own sandwiches and finding a nice place to sit in the gardens. I’m local so will be spreading the word. Simply not good enough!!!"

The Fountain Inn

The Fountain Inn

High Street, PO31 7AW, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom

Pub • Pubs • Steak • British


"We have used this place since the 90s and we had our local friends group there for Christmas Dinner here 2022. My husband had a message pop up advertising £25 for 2 drink 2 meals and urged us to go down. I urged him to phone and check, was told 'yes I 'm sure that 's everything on the menue ' booked tonight (wed) and went down. Was taken to the outside (slightly outdated) dining room for the meal despite offering the bar area, reason we did that was because waitress was already muttering 'can 't do 6 things at once ' in front of us. We sat and when someone (not waitress) asked our order we ordered drinks and asked if everything was actually on the 2 for £25 deal (again) server said he would check. Server came back with a word document with what was/wasn 't on deal not massively impressive given the FB promo. We felt a bit embarrassed at this point as he 'd been gone a while. Ordered 2 beyond burgers checked fries were on the menu as all the word doc. said was 'beyond burger ' and previously its come with different chips due to no meat contamination. 45mins later food came (this is a 1/2 empty room I can 't call it a restaurant). Waitress literally dropped plates and shot off. I flagged her to ask for another drink, she left and we looked at burgers that looked quite greasy and had cheese on. Bearing in mind we have ordered and had these burgers before which are advertised as vegan we were surprised at cheese. Couldn 't check menu as we were just shown a hasty word doc. When the waitress returned with drinks we asked her what these burgers were, she came back saying meat; we asked to cancel order as expecting vegan. Male server came back v defensive and quite patronising 'they are meant to look like meat it 's veggie hence the cheese vegetarians can eat cheese '. Then went. At this point we were both embarrassed and upset; hadn 't been asked if we needed any extra sauces/sides. Had to wait a further 5 mins before someone else appeared to say we would just pay for drinks and leave food. £23 spent for drinks and poor service. As we left the restaurant the glass collector who took our plates was very verbal into the kitchen 'look they 've not touched it ' and the male server was seemingly angry when we went to the bar to pay for drinks. The barman that served was very polite which shows its not all lost but the service was poor and its put us off as locals which is a real shame."