Fern - (Near Croydon, South East)

5 /5 Nina Morrison: I had my birthday lunch in this awesome restaurant. I celebrated with a couple of friends. Our overall experience was great! Food was delicious, fresh and nicely presented. Oysters were my #1. Judy, our waitress was absolutely amazing! She gave us a brief, but essential description of all dishes and really looked after us properly. We surely will be visiting Fern shortly!

4 /5 Wams Kianjirigua: Beautiful place but cold atmosphere, I have visited more than once and while they serve the best roast potatoes the vibe is missing. It comes across as a professional place to have coffee and meeting. I would go again and I do recommend trying it out for yourself. Close to East Croydon station and walkable distance from West C.

2 /5 Jamie Roberts: Stopped here for a solo breakfast and felt pretty unwelcome from the male server. Soon realised it may have not been rudeness but stress. He was the only one working and I seemed to be lucky to get seated. A number of people were later turned away or left because of the slow service. Yes, I feel sorry for solo wait staff but it was so slow. You could here the food bell from the kitchen and it was a good ten minutes between the bell going off and my food being brought to me. This explains why it was absolutely stone cold. I had the breakfast hash brown (without the chorizo) which was a good size portion, but cold, over-seasoned and needed more aoili. Also, when you’re paying £6.50 for a green juice, I would expect it to be fresh not bottled. Overall, I’m in absolutely no rush to go back or recommend. Food was average and service was poor.

5 /5 Carole Wood: My granddaughter won a cooking competition where she designed and cooked a meal and the first prize was a £100 voucher to spend in Fern. There were eight of us that went to celebrate her success. We all chose the roast dinner for two and my youngest granddaughter hasn’t stopped talking about the incredible Yorkshire puddings since! The whole atmosphere was really enjoyable and we made wonderful memories. Thank you to the team at Fern!

2 /5 Luca Attardo: Looking at the website I felt it was a vibrant place for a relaxing yet attentive lunch. Instead we found the manager/host/waitress on her phone at the desk and a lonely bartender miles away from the rest of the restaurant. The menu looked a bit confusing as there is no indication of starters and mains, neither it is a tapas style bar/restaurant. We ordered focaccia, scallops, beef croquettes, tuna tartare, pork belly, crispy potatoes, halloumi. We asked for no coriander but it was definitely ignored. The focaccia was ok, very dry on the outside and almost soft inside, nice the butter. Vote 6. The scallops were looking nice, the creamy beetroot were kind of ok, more for the colour than the flavour as there was no seasoning. Overall 6.5 mostly for the presentation. Beef croquettes dry, just it. They felt like the wheetabix without the milk... vote 2 no more. the tuna tartare tartare was served with coriander and 2 bugs on it. No much flavour on it, you couldnt define where it was the tuna from all the rest, but it didnt blend neither. One covered the other and we felt we were eating just the spicy prawn crackers at the end. Vote 4.5. Pork belly was pale, tasteless, wrong plate with the wrong condiments. No Malliard reaction, no seasoning on the sweet potatoes... it felt like dog food. Vote 3 (very generous). Crispy potatoes, the only dish with a bit of character, as much as you cannot fail with potatoes. Overall nice, well seasoned, crunchy, vote 7. Halloumi, again very difficult to make it wrong but you did. The fregola was overcooked to the point you couldnt feel it in the mouth, lost any crunchiness. The salsa itself was fine, they glazed the halloumi with sweet chilli sauce, why ruining a Mediterranean dish like this... I thinking to make it properly at home. Vote 6. Service: no one checked back the lunch, the food, the drinks, zero. She was on her phone for most of the time and far away from us, once we sat down we were left on our own destiny. We found 2 bugs and make the staff aware, no one approached to apologise, to offer a fresh dish. Even the glass was dirty. Everything we needed, we had to wave or just wait our luck (as there was no one to wait at). When we asked to remove 12.5% of service she looked annoyed. Service and attitude vote 1. Definitely dont waste your money here, such a shame a brand new place like this left sinking.