Hardwick Bar in County Durham

Steaks cooked to perfection, friendly professional staff.

Fantastic food. Staff made it special for a 90th birthday celebration.

A great experience, the fillet steak was lovely 😁👍🏼

Two stars as the service was very good, sadly the ribeye steak was a sorry excuse for a restaurant claiming to specialise in STEAK. I am not even sure it was ribeye as it had no fat or flavour whatsoever. It was not seasoned at all and somewhat tough. Perhaps the chef was on holiday, who knows? Not good. Certainly one of the worst steaks I have ever had.

Very ordinary experience, poor food and slow service.My wife and I "ate" dinner last night.The appetisers were an onion and blue cheese tart and pork belly ribs. The tart had zero blue cheese or onion flavours, the pastry was soggy. It was a plain tart with a little salt and pepper, not as described on the menu. The ribs while cooked beautifully and tender, were cold and tasteless.We both ordered Sirloin steaks for our main course, my wife's medium rare with blue cheese sauce, mine medium well with peppercorn sauce.My wife's steak was cooked perfectly, but again (bit of a theme here) it was a cream sauce, that had never been in the same post code as blue cheese. The accompanying mushroom, tomato and double cooked chips were very good.My steak ordered medium well, was rare, and so I asked them to take it back and give it a little longer on the grill. My wife also sent back her sauce as it had no blue cheese.After 30 minutes, by which time my wife had eaten her steak without sauce, they returned with my steak, which was very very well done, so over cooked it was hard to eat, and it came with my wife's blue cheese sauce. I asked for he peppercorn sauce I had orded and to speak to a manager. The sauce did not arrive and after 15 minutes, by which time my over cooked steak was now cold, I had to ask another waiter for help, and my sauce arrived shortly after. I couldn't eat the cold over cooked steak.We were going to leave but I was still hungry after no steak, so I ordered a chocolate and orange brownie. It arrived again beautifully cooked but, again a bit of theme, no orange taste or flavor. Why list things on a menu that do not contain what they say when they arrive?In the middle of all this, my wife wanted to use the rest room, and returned disgusted, without going into detail, all 3 of the toilets were overflowing with poo and paper. The toilets are not cleaned or checked, they really were disgusting.When the bill came, after another 20 minute wait, and us asking twice, we spoke to the manager, who said she was sorry, and removed the £5 brownie from the £120 bill. Nothing for the appalling service or one of the steaks being inedible, and the other without any sauce.What can I say that's positive...there was a reasonable if not excellent wine list, we found a nice Cabernet for about £40 and the atmosphere and decor was nice. Also the quality of the sirloin meat was excellent, only spoiled that they couldn't cook to medium well temperature after 2 attempts, 1st time rare, 2nd time very well done. The mushrooms that accompanied the steaks were excellent.In short, amongst the worse service I can ever remember in a restaurant, good quality product ruined by poor cooking, and bland cold and tasteless sauce, ribs and tarts.I can only assume the restaurant doesn't care about returning customers and lives off transient custom from people staying at the Hall.I am posting this review from my cell phone,so please excuse any fat finger spelling.

Great food

Great food

Excellent food let down by dated decor and very poor service. Our visit was on a Saturday evening when the hotel was busy with a wedding reception. Not sure if this was in a factor in the poor service but it shouldn't be. The Rib Room charges top prices and they should be able to deliver top quality service regardless of what else they have going on. Disappointing.

The steak was amazing- best I've ever had, the waiter Salvador spolit us rotten, his customer service was beyond outstanding