My husband and I booked a table for a special wedding anniversary and noted this in the booking request. When we arrived there was no mention of this by the staff and the restaurant was not busy.Our meal started out OK and we both liked our starters. But then it all started to go downhill.My supposedly vegetarian main was served and tasted of meat; clearly the vegetables had been cooked either next to frying meat or in a less than clean pan. The server asked if I wanted a replacement but I didn't want to make a fuss because it was a special evening for us, so asked if I could just have some chips instead so I would be eating my main alongside my husband. My husband wasn't terribly impressed with his chicken which wasn't served nicely as it looked as if it had been thrown onto the plate.While we were eating our main courses, we saw a party of 4 at the table next to us asking where their chips were but, when their chips finally arrived, everyone had finished their meal and their chips were cold. I hope that my chips weren't intended for their table!Anyway after we'd finished our mains, we wanted to order our pudding but waited at least 20 minutes for someone to notice that we wanted to order. A different server finally came up and, as I didn't know what to choose, I asked for a recommendation from the server. I explained that I liked dark chocolate and asked for the most chocolatey pudding. She recommended I pick the chocolate praline tart. My husband chose the chocolate fondant. Sadly, my pudding was definitely not very chocolatey but I ate some of it.However, my husband's pudding was served cold. Now, we have been to Côte many times over the past couple of years and, on the 4 occasions when we have ordered chocolate fondant, it has been served cold. So this is clearly an ongoing issue. On 2 occasions we asked for a replacement which arrived at the perfect temperature. So you would have thought that the restaurant would be aware that they're sending out cold chocolate fondants and work to avoid this.After we'd finished the original server came to clear our table and asked if we'd like coffee or anything else and we said no thank you. We expected him to return to ask if we wanted the bill but after 30 minutes waiting for this to happen, I gave up and got up and asked to pay. This process also took a while.Now I didn't jump straight here to write a review as I thought I'd go in and speak with the management and give them our feedback and explain we were disappointed and why. We like Côte and wanted to give them a chance to improve. The manager seemed very concerned, almost dramatically so, and acknowledged they had an issue with late serving of chips and also that they were already aware that chocolate fondants were being served cold (so why had they not taken corrective action on this???). He finished by saying that he would send me an email to follow up and thanked me for coming in rather than giving them a bad review.However, he sent no email. I have waited 2 months in case it was on his to-do list and he was just busy but he clearly was all words and no action.So I now don't believe that Côte actually care about improving food or service and, as a result, we haven't been back and have no intentions of going back. I guess the good that comes out of this is that the other restaurants in Winchester are going to benefit from our custom :)
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