GreyFriars

We stayed at Greyfriars for two nights to celebrate my 40th birthday, and it was amazing. My wife and I had The Vinoly Suite (room 17), which was huge, with two stand-alone baths that were a great feature. We ate in the restaurant and I'd highly recommend it. I tried Pheasant for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed it. I also stayed here in 2023 when I got married, and we'll definitely return for another special occasion.

We booked ahead, but when we arrived they put us in a little storage room with four other tables. It felt like someone's living room, with no atmosphere at all. We ordered drinks at the start and they never came. The food took about 15 minutes to order and was fairly standard, but waiting felt long when only four tables were being served. After an hour, we still had no drinks. The table next to us said they'd been waiting nearly two hours without receiving anything, so we cut our losses. The manager apologized and said there was no excuse. The prices suggest a luxury hotel, which this definitely isn't. I would not recommend it for anything beyond somewhere warm to kill time while looking for something better. Colchester is so boring!

The tea service is what made this visit so disappointing. The food arrived before the tea, and when I asked about it the waitress had to ask which tea I’d ordered. We weren’t offered a top-up for the small pot, and asking for more sandwiches got the reply, “we don’t do that anymore!” After nearly ten years of visiting Greyfriars, we remember afternoon tea as a special, high-class treat. This time there were four small sandwiches, including egg mayo on dry, stale bread. They came on separate plates, even though a three-tier stand was on the table. It felt like an ordinary local cafe, and we left massively disappointed. It’s sad to see an experience we enjoyed for so many years go downhill. We won’t be returning.

The cakes were delicious and the scones were lovely, but the cream was runny double cream instead of clotted cream, and the jam tasted like catering jam. The savoury food was sparse too: two people in our group of six had a tiny Scotch egg, a similarly tiny pate on toast, and what seemed to be a little prawn cocktail with only a teaspoon of sauce. There was no sausage roll or other savoury option. The sandwiches were okay, though a bit cold. This was my fifth visit, and I’d always thought the food was exceptional. Yesterday we waited ages for anything to arrive, and the value for money felt very poor. I won’t be coming back. I can think of at least five other places that serve better afternoon tea for a lot less.