Socrates At No 5 - Northumberland

It’s quite a small restaurant, narrow and too bright! The decor’s confusing considering it’s cuisine is Greek. No apparent nods to that inside, rather just a bland space with a few framed pictures of Morpeth hanging on the wall. And to be honest before the food arrived I was wishing I’d booked elsewhere. BUT The food was excellent, lovey and fresh, and great flavour. Very generous portions. The service was great. Pricing, a tiny bit expensive, but actually for the quality of the food and service, you don’t mind. This place could be so much better, with more of an authentic setting, new menus (current ones covered in tipp-ex and stickers), a dimmer switch and some Greek inspired music (rather than the lighthouse family). The most important things though, food and service were absolutely great.

Yesterday evening the 2nd February my wife and her friends visited this establishment. There were 4 of them in total. I asked my wife if she could bring me home a chicken gyros after her meal as I love the Greek gyros. On returning home I enquired as to how her meal was. In response she said “it was not only the worst Greek food she’d had, it was the worst food she’d ever eaten” . That’s saying something as we visit Greece at least once a year and love authentic Greek cuisine. She explained that the starters were poorly prepared and ‘a strange combination of ingredients’ . The main course for all 4 of them was over cooked and dry to the point all them left their food and when asked by the waitress if everything was okay ? the response was an emphatic no, to which a a mumbled response was given but no offer of an apology or reduction in the bill. Looking forward to my gyros and hoping it was better than my wife and her friends experience I was sadly disappointed. There was a total of roughly 4 greasy, soggy chips. Roughly 5 or 6 small dried out chicken pieces and the salad looked at least 2 days old and also dried out which went straight in the bin.The pita bread was okay though. The reason I’m writing this and not my wife is she doesn’t like confrontation but I feel restaurants should be held accountable for poor food and service. You would think in this present economical climate restaurants would be making every effort to give a good service when finances are tight, after all you need repeat customers. My wife and her friends paid over £120 for an extremely sub standard experience and then paid £7.50 for an extremely sub standard gyros which went into the bin. I decided to share a photo of my £7.50 gyros. I’m also more than willing to speak in person to the owner, chef if they’re happy to.

We’ve always had really tasty food from here but I don’t know what happened this time. Since lockdown we’ve been having takeaway instead of going into the restaurant and the food tasted exactly the same. The king prawns in the zorba were nice but not a strong taste but I think it was because the sauce was like tomato water. The kleftico was the same. Both the chips and the lamb tasted as if they’d been boiled. All you could taste was garlic, no herbs. The salad was tasteless too, normally it has olive oil and herbs on it but there was nothing. I don’t know if they have a new Chef or if it was just a bad day but for £37, I expected better.

Visited in September. Food not great, absolutely no atmosphere and ladies toilet opens straight into the restaurant. Didn’t find it good value for money. When I asked for one of the starters to be slightly altered the reply was NO … do t know if the service staff are the owners but there was no interaction with the customers whatsoever!!

Wonderful lunch, Brilliant food. Lovely staff. Warm and cosy and a fabulous menu. What more could you want.