Helen Browning's Royal Oak

Guests praise the friendly staff, spotless rooms, and delicious breakfast. They appreciate the comfortable beds and picturesque location, but mention the lack of specific amenities.

At a loose end in Bristol, so decided to return to this scenic pub which specialises in fantastic food. On arrival I could hear the strums of Careless Whisper , Jazz style being played by a Jazz band in the pub garden. Being a soup buff, I started with the splendid soup followed by an incredible beef burger which was just bursting with beef, the addition of cheese and bacon was immaculate. Jürgen the energetic and friendly chef and his band of helpers do grand job from their on location shack under the watchful eye of the entertaining Tim . An array of youthful waiters do a mighty fine job keeping the ale flowing and tables stocked with food orders to keep the punters happy. This is a must for people to visit , can't praise it enough, and I will be back.

Overall initial impression was comfortable and smart, but once inside, the flaws are apparent. The main issue is that the rooms are simply too small - most importantly, definitely too small for the price - resulting in just a double bed, which is too small and uncomfortable for two people. When I am staying in a place like this with a more expensive price tag, I certainly do not expect to have to sleep in just a double bed. Even with this small bed, there is not a lot of space left in the room, and it feels squashed when moving around. I am a size 8, and I found the shower too small (e.g. when washing hair, there is no room to move out of the stream of the shower when needed), and the shower head is too high (it appears not to be adjustable). Breakfast - I ordered the Eggs Royale. It was, in the event, inedible - the hollandaise tasted of nothing but vinegar. When the waitress came to collect our plates, I told her, and she did not really react, and there was no offer of a replacement or apology, no-one returned to me. Clearly, the chef does not know how to make hollandaise, and is not tasting his food when he should. In hindsight, I should have refused to have paid for breakfast. Other than that, the food at dinner was pretty bland. I had haddock (not in batter) and no effort had been made to cook it nicely or prepare a sauce for it. My meal was rather dry and tasteless. The STP for dessert had barely any sauce, and was really just dry sponge with ice cream. All rather disappointing. The outside areas looked really messy and scruffy. In terms of the staff we encountered, they were all nice, but the whole experience all felt rather 'bitty', it did not feel seamless. So, the decisive factors for us were the food along with the size of the room and the bed for the price. Overall, most definitely not worth the price tag, and we spent well over £200 for one night + food. We do not go away often at all, so we were looking forward to this, but it was all just such a disappointment.