The Vines - West Oxfordshire

Stayed for a wedding only a few days ago. Everything was so good that we extended our stay ! Keep it up Cam and Ian; we are already missing cam's italian food and we'll be back !!

If you would like a lesson in how not to manage a situation, look no further than the management at The Vines for inspiration. Having booked a hen do meal, we were excited to celebrate the bride to be at The Vines hotel restaurant. However, from the moment we arrived, we realised that this was a mistake. Despite booking only 2 weeks ago, we were told that “management had changed” and our hen do booking did not exist. We waited for a table to be made up, despite the restaurant being empty (and full of laid tables . The waiter had obviously not been trained in customer service and did not ever proffer a drinks menu. When the food finally arrived, the tagliatelle was good (despite copious amounts of whole peppercorns , as was the sausages and mash. The fish, however, was not at all palatable and it is was dubious whether it was even cod. When questioned, they brought out the packet from which the cheap supermarket frozen fish had been cooked. After we had eaten, we expressed our disappointment and instead of being highly apologetic, the manager seemed to think that a 10% discount and removing the uneaten fish was an acceptable apology. (For future reference, at least comping the drinks and profusely apologising to the bride to be would have been a good start! Equally, whilst the cat was absolutely adorable, having it sat, begging and walking all over the tables is not particularly sanitary. This restaurant has the potential to be so much better than it was!

What can I say. We stayed here for our Christmas work function, which we had a Christmas meal and a disco was also on. The food was fantastic, all cooked so well with great presentation. The room was also beautiful, very clean, modern but with a traditional quirk. As we stayed we also had breakfast the next morning which was so fresh and clean, not greasy and thrown together. If your looking for a friendly, warm and welcoming place to visit with great food, I highly recommend. Well done to the current owners you really were amazing.

We selected to stay one night here Saturday 16th September, really because of all the previous glowing reviews. We opted to have a meal here in the evening and although I have never had a Beef Stroganoff quite like it before, it was superb. The beef stroganoff was literally two small fillets of beef, with a sauce covering them both and cooked sliced mushrooms on top. With this meal you had mash potato and red cabbage all of which was superb. My wife had a Margarette Pizza which she also enjoyed. Drinks here are priced quite keenly and you never felt ripped off. There is ample parking and the main building itself is absolutely lovely. The staff, waiters etc are also very welcoming, kind and very considerate. The menu is extremely limited so if Pizza is your bread and butter, you will be fine. They only appear to have one choice of special meal available to chose from. Sunday 17th September we had breakfast in the pub/restaurant area. Again we met the owners/staff and sat down along with about 16 others for our breakfast. As we were eating our lovely breakfast another couple came in and looked for a table to sit at. The young couple had selected a table but quite suddenly decided to move to the other side of the restaurant and they both looked quite perplexed. What was then quite apparent was that on the carpeted floor by the tables in the restaurant was several cat faeces (poo). There was actually two separate locations with faeces on the floor and the young lady was quite right to quickly inform the staff. Seeing faeces in the eating area was the absolute last straw for us, and we basically finished up and the breakfast area and just decided to set sail early. We gathered up our belongings from our room handed the key back to the bar area and departed. This place could be a really brilliant place to eat. However I would suggest that the staff/owner ensures that a proper check of the breakfast/restaurant area is carried out in future, prior to any customers coming in to the restaurant. Having any faeces in an area where you are serving food and people are eating is totally unacceptable and would put us off staying/eating here again.

Wow what an experience… a delight to be welcomed by warm and friendly staff, nothing too much trouble, the food was lovely and hot, plentiful and always service with a smile .. peaceful and quiet stunning area will definitely return thank you for making our stay so enjoyable!