The Barn Brasserie in Colchester

A special family gathering. We all had 3 courses. A lovely setting. Lovely food. Great service. My only criticism was that the roast beef was too rare for me, quite chewy.

Our old experiences of the Barn were wiped clean. We had a birthday meal with family and the food and service was excellent. Plus we sat at the bar for an after dinner drink which so relaxing.

A magnificent venue with courteous staff make this an excellent choice for a wedding.The venue has a bar, dance floor and plenty of space for the guests that mean the most to you.Julia and her team were wonderful throughout the evening from the wedding to the dinner and the after party and the service with dinner. Couldn't ask for a more stress free day.

Threatening behaviour from manager!We visited on Christmas Day with extended family and when we arrived we were greeted by a couple of friendly staff and were seated in the bar whilst waiting to be shown to our table.We were shown to a lovely big table in one of the alcoves which was perfect.We waited quite a long time between courses as they were ten staff members down due to covid which was fine as we were chatting amongst ourselves.However due to the delays serving our food, we hadn’t quite finished our meal when we were asked to vacate our table as they had another group booked in, we explained we hadn’t had our teas and coffees and the member of staff told us not to worry they would make space in the bar area and we could have them there.We made our way over but we could not actually get into the bar area as it was absolutely packed, people were squeezed in like sardines, there were no tables or chairs free and most people were standing and as we had several elderly and two immunocompromised in our family group we didn’t feel happy about this, given the current situation.We therefore decided it would be safer to leave.We explained to one of the staff that we would like to pay our bill but as we hadn’t had our beverages could these please be deducted from the bill.Unfortunately after this everything went horribly downhill!!An aggressive manager who I believe is called Mo came over and was very verbally abusive and acted in an extremely threatening manor! He was waving his arms around and came right up into our faces, shouting “How much money do you want?” He repeated this several times!We were horrified, we had just spent the best part of £1,400 in the restaurant and to be confronted like this in front of a whole restaurant full of people was utterly humiliating, extremely embarrassing and totally unacceptable!We refused to deal with him because of his threatening behaviour and were then passed over to somebody else who said he was very sorry for the behaviour but this manager doesn’t work for them anymore and doesn’t speak very good English!(I assume he was called in due to staff shortages)He said he didn’t want us to leave unhappy and would refund the beverages.We have visited The Barn for many, many years and had a family wedding there, however after this outburst we would definitely never return. It is such a shame as it is such a beautiful building.This experience really spoiled our Christmas Day and I would never recommend ‘The Barn’ to anybody.To end this on a positive we visited ‘The Ship’ on Boxing Day with fifteen family members and had a wonderful meal with really lovely staff!

The Christmas Party at The Barn Brasserie was a nice evening having our Christmas meal. The staff were lovely. We had music playing after the meal. Some was from a while ago & some more up to date. It brought back memories of being in a nightclub again. (when Covid's done & dusted(???) we're be there again. 👍

Came for a family meal for 11 people (2 of which are young children). The restaurant was very accommodating with a nice table to seat all of us decent, a high chair available and also a decent kids menu on offer.The food was lovely from start to finish. We chose from the main a la carte menu as well as the Sunday specials with no issues in terms of waiting time or accuracy of order. All arrived plenty hot enough and in a decent timescale too.The service was good. I do feel like maybe they recruited some less well trained staff for the Christmas period who would maybe benefit from a bit more training perhaps but generally we're very attentive and did a good job keeping drinks flowing etc.All in would recommend this restaurant. We'll worth a visit for a lovely venue, good atmosphere, friendly service and great food and drink!

Had a great meal here yesterday, an thank you to Emily our server very professional

We were recommended to try The Barn by our lovely Air B&B host and, boy, are we glad we did! Beautiful building, delicious food, and the super-talented piano player was a surprise delight! The waiting staff were so friendly and couldn't do enough for you! We had an amazing evening and will definitely be back next time we are in the area. Both my partner and I ate from the evening three course set menu and the price was very reasonable for the (high) quality of the dishes. I had prawn cocktail to start, a main of chicken breast and rosti potato in a smoked garlic cream sauce, and the desert - which was absolutely "to die" for - was a lemon syllabub. Can't recommend The Barn enough. Sheer perfection!

Came here for a friend's wedding dinner and reception and was blown away by the food and service. The server's and management went above and beyond the entire time we were there ( which was considerable ).They were hard working and so attentive and best of all kept their smiles and good nature all the way through. I felt thoroughly spoiled. Will definitely be recommending to my friends and will visit again at the first opportunity.

We had The Barn as our wedding venue this December and it was so, so wonderful. The Barn were so professional yet relaxed and accommodating, and the building is stunning. Only aspect which stops me from giving it 5 stars was that we were told some of the Christmas decorations would be removed but someone else refused to allow them to be taken down. Otherwise, they made our day a lovely memory. ♥️