(Visited late March 2011, about 14:30 on a Monday) This restuarrant is a confused mish-mash of ideas. The Village Gate is a disappointing mix of irritating, high priced pretentiousness and scruffy service, standards and decor. An impressive initial impression from a great looking building gives way before even getting through the door. The way cracked step tiles and a broken bannister clash with obviously pretentious signage indicate what to expect inside. After waiting at the bar from which the staff had wandered off to do something more important than serve customers, a look around revealed a fairly cool looking bar hampered by random tat that looks like it's been dragged out of someone's loft to gather dust. The dining room which is laid out like an old ladies' living room contrasted completely with the bar. Thankfully, the lady who served us was polite and friendly, but the food is massively over-priced compared to the likes of the excellent Saracen's Head in beaconsfield or the much further afield Black Stallion in Bedford. the difference in these two places is the professional, clean, competent and inviting vibe, whileThe Village Gate sports scruffy staff ambling around aimlessly. At one, point, the people who were vaguely identifiable as staff wandered away from the bar at which customers have to go to order their food (An obvious no-no when the food prices are so high and the menu pretends to be sophisticated). Following this, some scratty guy in a grubby T-shirt jumped behind the bar and served customers without identifying himself. A dozen other niggles present themselves. The music is a wierd mix of Jazz, 30's swing, rap and anything else you can think of. The decor in the bar's dining area consists of animals that could be the food you're eating, looking happily at you while you dine. The one coherent, impressive looking section of the entire place is the corridor to the toilets, which features posters of classical literature artwork, far more striking and sophisticated than the tacky rubbish that's been hap-hazardly scattered around everywhere else. The food itself is way too expensive. My steak was presented with a large portion of some unidentifiable greens just dumped on the side of the plate. The meat was great, but blatently overcooked. The waitress agreed, but didn't have the feintest idea of how to rectify the problem. Again, in the confused, jumbled, higgldy-piggldy environement, no-one seemed to be responsible or in charge of anything. Professional, competent restaurants don't need to hide obvious short-comings with pretentiousness. If you like the pubby atmosphere, but don't want to pay higher-than-London prices, try The Harrow. If you like something classier and formal, take the trip to The Saracen's Head in Beaconsfield. I can't imagine The Village Gate lasting long unless the pub either lowers prices to match the matey, unprofessional service, or grow up and deliver an experience to match the prices. Almost as bad as The Slug and Lettuce in Aylesbury, I find it impossible to reccommend The Village Gate. read more

What a fantastic pub! We've been going to The Village Gate since it opened last year, and have never been disappointed. The staff are brilliant - really relaxed, attentive and friendly, and always smiling. The food is heavenly - nothing too complicated, not too expensive, but always fresh, hot and tasty. There are lots of different areas to sit in - from the formal restaurnat (check out the cool chandelier!) to the cosy bar, or one on the 3 lovely outside areas (the views of the Wendover Hills are fabulous). Nothing is ever too much trouble at The Village Gate, and that's why we keep on going back. Highly recommended. read more

The Village Gate - Pubs Near Me - Aylesbury, BKM

I went to this pub on Saturday night and I was VERY unimpressed! The pub looks good from the outside and they have obviously spent a lot of money on the decor. The problem is the service and the food! The bar stuff didn't care and could barely look you in the eye. The food is VERY expensive for what it is. We ordered a Welsh Rarebit to start. I live in Brighton and have maybe been spoiled by very good pub food, I have had Rarebit on chunky homemade bread, with a rich bubbled topping. This looked liked Dairylea smeared onto cheap white bread and it didn't taste much better! When we complained about this and asked to see the manager he came over and told us that actually it was very good and that he was a trained chef and that was how it was supposed to be! We were also told that the customer was NOT always right! An interesting way to deal with a complaint! He took the Rarebit away in a rude fashion and said he would take it off our bill! Next came the main courses £18.95 for Steak and Fries and about £15 for Scampi and Fries. The steak and Scampi were good although you only got 5 pieces of very small scampi (pretty disappointing). The fries were a joke! They were frozen ones that had been undercooked! If you are going to make a point of fresh, honest food why on earth would you serve frozen under cooked fries?? This is not hard to get right! To say we were disappointed is an understatement! So we complained again! We made the mistake of eating the food as the manager seemed to take that as an indication of us actually enjoying it! The truth was that we were hungry and DID not want to wait for more bad food. We had walked up an appetite and had been waiting to order so we were really hungry as we were actually excited about the food! We were very honest and said that the meat was good (the peppercorn sauce on the steak however was NOT good..very bland and tasted like it was from a packet). We mentioned about the fries and he admitted they were frozen! He was VERY defensive the whole time and basically tried his best to make us feel like idiots for complaining. The manager actually said to us that he thought we had come into the pub with the intention of getting a cheap meal!!! This was incredibly insulting as we were doing nothing of the sort. We knew the prices before we went in! We eat in these types of pubs ALL the time and most of them are actually WORTH the high prices. You get beautiful triple cooked chips, or beer battered chips or home made fries with the skins still on! You don't get frozen chips that are under cooked! You also get VERY good service which just didn't seem to exist in this pub. The manager made the experience even worse than it could have been by handling the situation SO badly. He was disrespectful, rude, difficult, insulting and quite frankly I wish we hadn't paid for any of it. All he did for us was take the Welsh Rarebit off and maybe one of the fries I think. He seemed to think it was all about the money and that we wanted cheap food. He was very wrong it was the fact that the food was NOT worth the money! He made poor excuses that it was a busy night (not sure what that had to do with our bad food and service) and that we were sitting in the bar and therefore don't receive the same service as the restaurant! I understand there is a difference but surely as we are paying the SAME prices we should at least receive good and polite service?? Apparently not! We ordered a bottle of wine with the meal and I went to get it from the bar (as I knew it wasn't table service) and the girl at the bar looked at me blankly and said she didn't know which one it was. She said someone would bring it over in a bit. We waited a while and then a young guy plonked it on the table, turned his back and then turned back and asked do you want glasses with that? What kind of question is that? Of course we want glasses, do they think because we are at the bar we are going to drink it out of the bottle??? When we told the manager about this, his excuse was again that it was bar service and we shouldn't expect to have it brought to us. The funny thing is that we didn't expect that! I went to the bar to collect it but his incompetent staff didn't know which bottle it was and TOLD me it would be brought over!!!!! The whole thing turned into a joke and got pretty out of hand! This was due to the managers lack of ability to deal with complaints. If he had been polite and understanding from the start I don't think it would have turned into such a debacle. I would NEVER go to this pub again and I would not recommend it to anyone. If you want overpriced food, terrible service and to be made to feel like a cheapskate then head on down! read more