NoTwenty9 – Burnham Market

The building is beautiful with an inviting, roaring fire in the bar area. The staff were all friendly and attentive. I ordered the mussels which were hugely disappointing as they were very gritty. I prepare mussels at home so can only assume they hadn't been washed sufficiently. I couldn't eat them all as I feared chipping my teeth. Despite informing the staff of this, we were still charged £30 for them. In contrast, my husband's meal was excellent. I would go back but would definitely avoid the mussels.

Went for dinner menu selection poor, I wish I was a dog! they certainly had a more varied menu and got treated better. Had to climb over a dog numerous times, the owners were either oblivious or did not care for none dog owners!! The the pea risotto was like bad pea soup. The restaurant mangeress was great, well done. Better menu and food last year.

Fantastic location, nice venue and very good value food. Unfortunately staff was cranky and it seemed more like the general attitude that one off situation (it wasn’t a matter of just one person). I’d give it another go though hopefully proving myself wrong. Also, come early if you can as dishes disappear from the menu quickly and you might be up for a disappointment.

We booked a reservation for the 30th of December 2022 for an Evening meal. As is the usual response to the many bad reviews regarding the attitude of the Manager and No29’s usual flippant response to Reviews- ‘Let’s start with the facts’. We booked some 6 months in advance for our meal and noted on the Website that we had 2 dogs on our reservation, the team on arrival stated that we could not be seated as we did not state dogs on our reservation (it is clear the website failed to pull through the detail on the booking) We said we would be happy to wait for a table, this is when we were confronted by the Manager for the Evening -Rachel. She said, ‘it’s up to you but, we cannot guarantee anything’. ‘You should have put it on the reservation’ in an extremely abrupt and unfriendly manner. Given the issues that would unfold during the evening which we will detail further in this review, it is clear this woman is out of her depth, has limited problem-solving skills and has people skills to match. This obviously means that any issues remain unresolved and the attitude she conveys becomes unpleasant, argumentative, and not at all helpful. It is clear this lady has been over-promoted, and we have been fortunate that in each of the 5 years we have dined we have never seen her on duty. Sadly, the previous experienced Waiter has left, he was outstanding and clearly the dining experience has deteriorated since his departure. We have previously left excellent reviews from prior years and were extremely surprised how staff skills had fallen. So, we were told that ‘if a table came free, we would be next in line’. We waited diligently for 30 minutes in the bar area next to an empty table. and as tables came free, despite saying we would be next… drinkers from the bar were subsequently allowed to be seated, with a poor young member of bar staff given no support or direction from the Manager. After watching the debacle unfold, we asked to speak to the Manager. She appeared with a look of thunder after being disturbed and said these people are ‘dining’ and have ‘properly booked’ inferring we had not done so and were really not wanted now we had no table; this was not the case as no food order was taken. When asked what solutions were available to the problems, we were abruptly told ‘you can wait, and I will not guarantee you a table or the other alternative is you can go’. We also had a breakfast booking for the new year, we were subsequently told, ‘you know what we will cancel that as well.’ Really giving us no option to dine on either occasion. Things happen in business and problems arise, but this was clearly a challenge too far for the Manager. We dine in a substantial number of high-end restaurants every year and have done so for many years. This is our worst experience to date. The Manager then ran to the kitchen, whilst we waited for payment. After waiting 5 minutes, with no payment taken, I went to find the manager in the restaurant. At this point she was laughing with young staff in a very dominant and childish manner. I asked who was taking payment for drinks, it was then that a young member of the team was subsequently ushered forward to take payment. The Manager then started pointing at us having then returned to the bar area with her neck rocking forward-back and shouting for all customers to hear take your large dogs with you!! This part of the experience was extremely sad and unecessary, it was disappointing to see an out of their depth employee falling apart. As parting shot after we asked if the owner was present before we left, she screamed ‘No and don’t worry Tim will back me up’. Whilst also shouting an inaudible sentence ‘see Door, there’s Door, we have sign’. We have not spoken to Tim yet, but it’s clear he allows this well documented behaviour to remain unchecked (see other terrible reviews re Service in 2022) as he would not want to lose his Chef who it appears is in some way related to the manager.

Thank you to, Rachel, Dan, Adrian, Tyler, Charlie, Lewis and Jeremy for making Lisa's birthday so special yesterday. We all had a wonderful time, great atmosphere and great food 👌