Yew Tree in Colchester

I booked online for the mothers day menu and a bottle of champagne, none of which was ready when I arrived with my family. We then ordered from the normal menu only to be told some of what we'd like was not available. The kids meals were poor and the mash potatoe was terrible, hard and flavourless. My wife ordered Sea Bass and risotto. The risotto was tasteless. Overall a bad experience and the food was microwaved and lacked flavour. We won't be returning.

Interesting menu and friendly staff. Always had a nice meal and have recommended it to friends and family. Dog friendly too, and they look after their doggy visitors well 🙂Let down slightly by conflicting information across social media and online. For example, we missed brunch as the time on the website said it ended half an hour later than they said in the pub, which was different again to the time stated on Facebook!

Had a roast today and the food was awful. The service was okay but the food was just so bad. We have been so many times before and it has been fantastic but today it was not good. My partner had 2 carrots on his plate and they were black. Mine was all burnt! The potatoes were chewy and stale. The meat was minimal. And the Yorkshire was burnt. The cabbage was hardly cooked. So disappointed.

When we were living in Colchester, we used to  to the Yew tree often and liked the delicious pub food and the atmosphere.  That is why we tried the same place in our recent  visit to the colchester this time too. However, it was a disappointment. Our orders arrived an hour later,after having to enquire after them. Mash was cold, gravy was too runny.Manager apologised and offered us desert on the house. It was a good gesture however, it did not fix the real problem of having our main courses being cold and not as good as before.I may think twice to go there again...

The worst experience I have ever had in a restaurant!On arrival no menus were provided, waited 10 minutes hoping the menus would arrive however they didn’t so had to go and find them ourselves.20 minute wait before we were offered any drinks and food choices taken. Told by waitress no starters were being served however everything else on the menu was available. Disappointed about the no starters however we ordered our mains anyway.45 minutes later and mains courses no where to be seen, waitress comes over to tell us 4 out of the 6 dinners we had ordered were now not available and that we had to re-order.Re-ordered the main courses, we have no been sat in the restaurant for an hour and still no food.A further 30 minutes later main courses arrive, roast dinners were ok at best, however the beef burger was inedible - burger meat was dry and the size of the onion rings was laughable.No apology from the manager, the waitress was left to fend for herself when it was clearly not her fault.Not sure what happened this afternoon as we have eaten at the Yew Tree numerous times and have always had good food and service.Very disappointing.

Absolutely shocking food and service. My steak sandwich took an hour and half, and had 2 pieces of steak in it, my girlfriends dish had half the ingredients advertised. The bread on all our dishes was all hard and stale, even one my previous visit, I ordered hummus and pitta, for stale bread to come out and be told there were out of pitta, they seem to love serving out of date bread. I thought I would give them one more chance. Even when we said we had things still missing, the staff still didn’t bring the missing items, they had to be reminded multiple times. Its like they have got teenagers to run the pub. It’s such a shame, as it’s such a pretty pub in such a nice area, but the food is diabolical, and the village really deserves better. If they actually got a good chef in, they could do so well. Shame they are so short sighted and continue to service inedible food to paying customers. I would rather go to a Hungry Horse or Whetherspoons than here, and that’s saying something. I am from the village, and all of my family from here and friends won’t go anywhere near this pub due too poor quality, and that’s about 20 people out of a small village, no wonder it’s always so empty.

Seems to have had a recent refurb and it looks great, proper pub vibes. Good food and beer.

Team Christmas lunch at the Yew Tree was very enjoyable. Clean tables that were wide enough not to feel cramped, comfortable chairs, thoughtful things like printing out everyone’s choice as a reminder and having all sauces on the table before the food arrived.Staff were very attentive and helpful without being intrusive. Toilets were clean Which is a good sign.The food was generally good - a couple of things could be improved which the pub team noted.Thank you - a great pub!

Beautiful pub restaurant inside and out. Excellent variety of food and drinks and great quality. We both had a signature roast which was absolutely delicious and this is the first place I’ve ever been to that does proper roast potatoes!! Only negative thing I will say about the roast is that the gravy was too thin and not enough and the veg were over cooked and like mush but still edible with a nice flavour and my slow roast pork belly did not come with the stated apple sauce! For dessert I chose the apple and blackberry crumble but it was sadly sold out, so I had the apple crumble instead and it was lovely, defiantly homemade, only thing that let it down was the custard as there was barely any. I had a couple of glasses of Shiraz and although pricey it was delicious and I’m happy to pay that amount for that! Staff were very cheerful, polite, attentive and helpful. We thoroughly enjoyed our evening, we were not rushed and didn’t mind the wait for our food. The atmosphere and ambiance of the restaurant was wonderful. Cannot wait to return. Highly recommend.

Drove past looked really nice, went back for dinner. Very good young man behind the bar who was very helpful. For some reason starter and main course arrived at the same time and some vegetables never arrived but would still go back.