Great Fosters

We have stayed at this hotel 10 times now and there is a reason for this, location, beautiful historic hotel and amazing staff, you will not be disappointed!

Booked The Grill for Anniversary dinner wanting somewhere a bit special. The dining room is certainly that, wonderful Tudor architecture. The food not so good. Started with a selection of warm bread £7, which was not warm and four small pieces two of which were borderline stale. Requested replacement which was not much better. For starters I had their take on Prawn Cocktail. One “king”prawn supposedly poached but way overdone plus some salad items, tasty but inadequate. Main course Chicken with truffles. Two tiny bits of truffle and about half a Chicken breast, again tasty but inadequate but for the very nice triple cooked chips at £7 extra. Disappointing and very expensive. My companions fared little better. Final straw. No draft beer or lager, a big no no.

Our host has already commented on our terrible experience, however the distorted reply of the hotel to her review has sufficiently incensed me to give my own review. The circumstances were that we had been invited for lunch. Our host was a long-standing friend that we had not seen for a while. Our host’s review mainly commented on the terrible food, however that had been proceeded by terrible service. On arrival the receptionist was lovely and showed us to the room where our host was waiting. It was all downhill after that. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but the service was atrocious. At every stage from trying to order drinks, (several attempts), to trying to get a menu, to trying to place an order for lunch we had to seek out a member of staff, which was difficult. When we eventually did place an order for drinks – a gin and tonic and a champagne – we received instead a Bacardi and Coke, a glass of prosecco and a gin and tonic. When we pointed out we had ordered champagne the waitress seemed a bit confused. I’m still not sure if she knew the difference between prosecco and champagne. After sitting around waiting and waiting, expecting to be told that our food was ready we decided we had no choice but go to seek out the dining room to find out. There we discovered it was ready, but no one had told us. It was there that we had the disgusting “prawn cocktail” our host perfectly describes in her revue. (And other reviewers have said how horrible it is). The hotel in its reply makes a point of saying that we ate it and did not complain at the time. Well, there was only one prawn and once we started it seemed impolite to spit it out. Also, as guests it seemed bad manners to criticise the meal and point out how awful it was. It was when our host said she found it disgusting and she felt nauseous that we felt able to give our opinion. We then decided that it was so bad, and that our host was feeling ill as a result, that we decided we could not stay. (That and the ever-present bluebottles in the dining room). We then stood up and let our waitress know we were leaving. Contrary to the hotels comment “the remaining food was declined and not paid for” we had not been offered, nor received, any remaining food. The waitress didn’t seem at all phased by us saying we were leaving, more just a shrug on the shoulders. No request was made for payment. I assume that the hotel's comment is just a nasty attempt at point scoring. We offered, and paid for, the drinks that we had – which, in retrospect, I think was generous. What a dreadful hotel.

Booked the Garden room, private dining, for my 70th Birthday. Excellent room overlooking the lovely garden and very spacious for a family. The service was par excellence led by Valeria, who was professional and absolutely amazing. Her attention was second to none and her care of the children was fantastic. Food was ordered a week with a nice choice. The food was superb and served at a nice leisurely pace. All in all it was a great 70th birthday celebration and Great Fosters rose to the occasion admirably. I cant recommend Great Fosters highly enough for a family lunch and wish to give massive thanks to Valeria.

I went with four female friends to celebrate an 80th birthday over afternoon tea. The service was excellent but we all agreed that the quality of the food was dreadful. The sandwich fillings were uninspired - cheddar and chutney, drab egg mayonnaise….the best thing of all was declared the prawn brioche roll but my gluten free selection had nothing like that and was just white processed bread - why not brown?. There was an absence of other savouries that might come with a good afternoon tea.The scones were cold, and dry and looked as though they came from a supermarket packet and the gluten free ones only edible with lashings of cream and jam. The sweet element was also poor quality - the mango mousse thing collapsed into a puddle after an hour! The tea selection included bannoffee pie or white chocolate and chilli flavour, more a McDonalds than a five star hotel with a Michelin star. Heaven help that you would like Assam or Darjeeling tea! Sorry but a poor quality rip off at £58 and we won’t be returning.