Cottons

Review for cotton

Quick Facts

• Attended end of Jan 2012
• Customer service isn’t good
• Food a bit expensive, 2 courses no alcohol £50
• Small portions
• Main stream, not traditional Caribbean, some flavours work some don’t
• Not much atmosphere (no music) in restaurant area, only in the bar


I took my wife to cottons for her birthday, we entered the restaurant via the only entrance the bar which played reggae music and seem to have an atmosphere. There are 2 floors. we weren’t show where to go so waited until a chap who seemed to be chatting up a young lady noticed and showed us upstairs to the restaurant. The restaurant is quiet as you cannot here music from the bar so there is not much of an atmosphere. The starter wasn’t very Caribbean and wasn’t very nice. It took about 45 minutes to an hour for the main course to arrive. The customer service is not great, my waitress was like a robot, no smile or interaction with us or other she served. I complained that the prawns was over cooked and she shrugged her shoulders and didn’t offer an alternative, never apologised or even called the manager. I couldn’t see a manager so I thought I will just deduct £2 from the £9.75 starter. The flavours were not very Caribbean choices especially the prawn starter and the one my wife had.
The mixed jerk was nice but not traditional jerk, tasted more barbeque. The portions were not very big, the jerk mixed meat, a 5th of a belly pork, 1 small thigh, a wing, a small meatball size of lamb kofte, it was very nice but not enough of it.
A bit expensive, £50 for 2 courses for 2 with no alcohol. The manager who I later discovered was the chap who was chatting up a lady earlier didn’t offer me a solution and said I should have told him earlier about the problem., just said he would remove the service charge and refused to give me £2 or anything of the £9 starter even though it was overcooked. He didn’t apologise or show any understanding.

This place has really gone down, i have been coming here for 20+ years.

1 star for the atmosphere and service, the food was terrible, the drinks warm and the glasses dirty, i drank my dragon stout from the bottle.

When i made a comment about this and the fact that the service charge was already added to my bill and prefer to decide myself, the manager was a total smart alec telling me that the restaurant will be here for another 25 years.

Well it will have to-improve dramatically to do this!!!!Dr K

I arrived last night and felt this place was warm due to its location in the mix of other restaurants in the exmouth market. When I walked in the manager was somewhat weird in the way he greeted me, maybe he was just having a bad day. I was shown to my table immediately with my guests. We started with cocktails, they were out of this world, I cannot recommend them enough. I ordered a starter, the ackee and saltfish tart, man that blue my mind. The rest of us had the following for main.....tilapia with vegatables, that was terrible, I had the curry goat, that was unbelievably underseasoned, my girlfriend had the lamb leg welldone, terrible and burnt, then my other colleague had the pork belly and jerk chicken, which he loved. The waitress was amazing and deserve the tip we left her, but the food was substandard and definately does not represent the food of the carribean I know.

Go elsewhere if I were you for food, but cocktails are phenominal.