The Treehouse, Croydon

We went to The Treehouse in Croydon on Sat 9th Jan. We were a group of 8 and were out celebrating a birthday. We picked the Treehouse because we had heard fab reviews. How very very disappointed we all were with our dining experience.

My sister and I arrived earlier than the rest of our group so had a drink in the bar area and then made our way to the staff who had yet to acknowledge our being there. As we approached they continued their conversation and actually finished it before answering us. We said we had a reservation which was met with some confusion as they tutted and flapped around before pointing at a table. We assumed this was ours, sat ourselves down and were ignored until the rest of the party arrived.

In short the service that followed was dire. Not a smile, not an "Everything ok?" - NOTHING. We were totally ignored and had quite a time of it trying to flag staff down to order drinks etc. They looked utterly inconvenienced by the whole thing. The food recieved mixed reviews - my seabass fillet was amazing but my friends venison was awful. We had to send the steak back as they had not cooked it as we'd asked. (In fairness to them, they did deduct the cost of the venison from the bill.) When ordering desserts we were told we couldn't wait for a bit between courses as some deserts took 20 mins to prepare so were made to order straight away. Then the deserts were bought out at all different times, one girl having to wait a good 20 miuntes after everyone else had theirs.

Having sat drinkless and completely unattended for a good half hour we flagged someone down for the bill- it came to a reasonable �260 with the venison deducted. But there was a �27 service charge which was apparently not optional. We are always generous tippers, but a non optional �30 for a service we didn't receive seems a bit much. They literally placed our food and drink in front of us, which is a waiter's job specification I would imagine. They did nothing else. So we politely (I stress politely because we were!) queried this with the man who came to take the payment, who in reply was rude, insulting and aggressive. He wouldn't accept we'd received poor service. He shouted over us when we tried to explain why we felt this. When we mentioned the steak as an example he said we obviously weren't used to eating steak the way its meant to be cooked. How rude! I whispered to my sister "Have we asked to see the manager?" having assumed the man shouting at us and making us pay the service charge must have been a waiter, he shouted "Yeah! Yeah"" I asked if he was the manager and he shouted "Yes!" in my face. Within our party we had 2 retired hotel owners and a food critic who were truly mortified by his attitude, aggression, arrogance and rudeness.

We paid the charge having been given no option and left feeling utterly frustrated and insulted. I am baffled as to why they ignored us when we were willing to spend plenty of money in their establishment. I am further baffled as to why the manager would deal with genuine queries, politely worded by quiet, non aggressive cutomers (with an in depth understanding of the business) with such aggression. And we were all disappointed that a birthday celebration turned out as this. Needless to say, we will not be returning and I would strongly advise others to avoid it.

10 Jan 2010 13:19