The Parrot, Cheltenham

Very few of the steaks on the menu were available. It would of been better to preorder them. Info had to be prised from the owner. Some of the food was poorly made and presented - the chef even came out to apologise unprompted. If he knew why send it out? The atmosphere was poor - its an old pub which has had little spent on it. Expensive for what you got. I would not go back or recommend it.

Dingy restaurant, lacking in atmosphere. Torn lampshade, uncomfortable, well-worn chairs. The menus were dirty and creased. Service was poor and when the Sunday chicken roast arrived, the Yorkshire puddings were burnt and tough,the gravy was watery and over-salted, the portion of chicken was derisory and dry, and the cauliflower cheese was tasteless and soggy.

The manager offered us more chicken, and brought further Yorkshire puddings that were still over-cooked. He admitted that the cauliflower was soggy and said 'we should have been advised of this', adding that 'some customers like it like that'. Although he offered us something else to eat, we had no confidence that any other dish would be significantly better.

We had a Groupon for £22 for two (original price was £37.50) which included 2 'Champagne' cocktails (served in wine glasses) that were mixed with sweet, synthetic juices. Even at the discounted price of £11 each, this meal was poor value and virtually inedible, so we left the restaurant and ate elsewhere. We felt that compared with almost any other Sunday lunch, the Parrot was a blatant rip-off and we are unlikely to visit The Parrot again. Not recommended.

We went as a group of three, me, my partner & my mother who was visiting for two days. We made the regrettably bad choice of opting for the Parrot Steak Restaurant for one of her visiting nights, due to the fabulous reviews on TripAdvisor. We did feel confident that due to these reviews we'd be in for a tasty meal but the start of our ordeal began when my partner heard where we were going. His words were "oh no, we're not going to the Rat & Parrot are we *groan*" as it used to be a pretty dodgy dive pub a few years ago and we were to find to our great disappointment, not much has changed - with thick sticky dirt on the carpets in the bar area and extensively cracked tiles & mirrors in the ladies toilets.

Upon our arrival we were happily greeted by a joyfully bouncy maitre d', the only true part of the reviews we had read on TripAdvisor who seated us quickly & took our drinks order.

We ordered a smoked salmon salad and the lobster bisque for starters which was very poor value for money, the smoked salmon being thinly shredded as to almost be transparent & probably amounted to one slice, upon a sheer mountain of dry undressed salad leaves. The bisque which my partner ordered was near to tasteless & certainly without any "chunks of lobster" as experienced by reviewers.

The real thorn in our sides came when our main courses were ordered, I requested the fillet steak & was told this was not available but they would gladly substitute it with the Texas Longhorn specially ordered fillet for the same price - fantastic we thought, we all ordered the fillets (we were going to anyway). A few minutes later, the waitress returns & says sorry but there are only two portions available, so one of us switches to rib-eye. Ten minutes later, she's back to say sorry again but there's no fillet steak AT ALL for anyone - please do remember that we're in a STEAKHOUSE, it's not the weekend, it's a Tuesday night. Somehow I don't think so.

Extremely grudgingly, we were all advised by the bouncy maitre d' to order three ribeye steaks, oh you won't regret it he said, they're absolutely to die for.

Three stringy rib eye steaks arrived, 50% of each steak was inedible due to the large floppy pockets of gristle & fat and at just under £20 per steak, this was a huge wastage of the meat and also our hard earned money. We were shocked that what markets itself to be a high end steak restaurant not only doesn't stock fillet steak and lies about it, can serve up not one, not two but three vile steaks which were impossible to eat & are the quality you would feed a dog.

We quickly asked for the bill which was an astronomical £81.00 for a few mouthfuls of food & promptly complained. The maitre d' reduced our bill to £48.00 which was still horrendously expensive for the small amount we could actually consume.

We will never ever set foot again in the Parrot Steak Bar & I will be truthful & honest if anyone asks me my opinion before dining there. My party were thoroughly disappointed & it spoilt our evening & gave our visitor a very bad impression of the beautiful town we live in. The next night we dined in Petit Blanc, Raymond Blancs restaurant at the Queens Hotel & were suitably satisfied for half the price including wine.

Came here to see what the place was like after reading that it had join up with the Cafe Rene in Gloucester.

As a steakhouse you couldn't want for more, there so many different types and the waiter was very helpful it explaining the different between them. My girlfriend who is a veggie found a wonderful Mushroom Risotto.

All in all very enjoyable meal.

The Parrot, Cheltenham an excellent experience! Carvery is simply fantastic. Advisable to book a table as this meal is no secret to many people. Good no nonsense food.