A few months ago me and a friend had the opportunity to visit the Bill’s restaurant in Norwich so that I could review it on my blog. I could not believe my luck….free food! Fabulous! 🙂

Bills have restaurants all around the UK and you can see a full list of the places on this link. Locations include London – Covent Garden (St Martin’s Courtyard) , London Kensington High Street,  London Shoreditch (Hoxton Square), Windsor, Cambridge, Bury St Edmunds, Cheltenham, Nottingham plus there are Bills restaurants in many more locations. Over on their website you can read the story of how Bill’s came to be

We were given the chance to order whatever food & drink we liked (still can’t believe our luck…even now!) and we savoured the opportunity to sit down in a beautiful restaurant with no worries about our budget.  It was bliss! We were good girls though and didn’t order anything too over the top.

My friend ordered herself a pot of English Breakfast tea which arrived in a rustic enameled teapot and I went for the Bill’s Pink Lemonade which came in a glass bottle with a tall glass with a strawberry in it. My friend said her tea was perfect and as for my pink lemonade…..it was fizzy, summery and pink…what’s not to like?! (You can even buy the Bill’s Pink Lemonade in their online shop. It is made by a small artisan producer in France).

We decided to share a Veggie Board Mezze as a starter as we would get to try lots of different meals but wouldn’t fill ourselves up so much that we didn’t have room for a main meal and pudding!

The Veggie Board mezze was divine! The Piadina bread was warm and delicious. It was accompanied by a dish of mixed olives (all for me as my friend can’t stand them.Excellent news!), a dish of extra virgin olive oil hummus with a sprinkling of paprika on the top of it, a dish of baba ganoush (smokey aubergine dip) , a dish of sunblushed tomato & basil dip plus to top it off there was a couple of crispy halloumi croquettes. We absolutely loved this mediterranean starter and it is well worth its price of £9.95. I will most definitely be ordering this again the next time we visit Bills as not only was it tasty but very well presented too.  My favourite was the bread and hummus and it was lovely to try the baba ganoush for the first time. I have always been a fan of halloumi so really appreciated the chance to have it deep fried in bread crumbs. Yum! As I mentioned earlier I was the only one to eat the olives as my friend is not a fan of them. I have tried to convert her numerous times but without success. I don’t think I’ll try any more though because if I’m honest with myself….I don’t want to share the olives anyway! 🙂

For mains we did have to spend rather a long time umming and ahhing about what to go for. It all sounded so delicious!  We decided to be healthy and have a side order of Rocket & Pecorino salad with a balsamic dressing on it. It was £2.95 and considering how much salad you got on the plate that was a great price. Eventually I had made my mind up about what I was going to have as my main and then my friend went and said ‘Have you seen the specials?’. No, I hadn’t, 🙁  Well after a few more minutes of deciding if I was going to stick to my original choice or go for a special I decided to go for the special!

It was a ‘Rump Steak Sandwich, served in ciabatta with rocket, plum tomatoes, horseradish mayo and Bill’s Onion Marmalade (which can be bought here) accompanied with skin on fries’. It cost £11.50 and tasted amazing! I can still taste it now and looking at the pictures is making me so hungry! I asked for some mayonnaise to accompany my chips and they kindly brought it out to me in a little dish. It was proper mayo too and it was perfect for dipping my fries in.  I have always been a fan of onion marmalade and I love steak too….so to be able to have two of my favourite things in one meal was lovely,  The steak was juicy and succulent and I highly recommend this meal if you are lucky enough for it to be available when you visit.

My friend chose to have a ‘Sesame seed bun with grilled halloumi, hummus, baby gem, roasted peppers, sweet chilli sauce and yogurt served with skin on fries’. The presentation of her meal was wonderful. It came on a wooden board with a sheet of printed greaseproof paper on and there was a wooden stick through her burger to keep it all together. It costs £9.95 and it was on the main menu so there’s a chance it could still be available when you make a visit to Bills.  My friend really enjoyed her meal and said she would definitely order it again if we go back.

Last but not least, we finally got to the pudding stage and since it was only right we test out all courses so as to write a thorough review, we went for an ice cream each.  These were so nice that when they arrived we started eating them straight away and forgot to get a photo of them as they looked when they arrived at the table. It was only after a few mouthfuls that we remembered! I went for a scoop of strawberry, a scoop of vanilla and a scoop of mango sorbet whilst my friend opted for just vanilla. The ice creams looked so appetising in their sundae glasses and the ultimate finishing touch was the wafer with ‘Bills’ on! These ice creams were £4.25 which I think is a very good price for a dessert. In a lot of other restaurants you would have to pay more than this for a dessert.

After our pudding the friendly waitress kindly asked if we wanted any more drinks and I chose to have a coffee.  It was very nice and a great end to our meal.

We didn’t get to see the bill for our ‘Bill’s’ meal as we didn’t have to pay for anything as it was on the house for the purposes of the review. But as you can see from the prices I have mentioned throughout the review the costs of a meal at Bills are about the same as you would find at other restaurants.

My friend and I had a fantastic lunch at Bill’s and without a doubt we will visit again. In fact this visit I am blogging about wasn’t actually our first visit to Bill’s. We had already been of our own accord a couple of months prior to that as a ‘Christmas treat’ and had a fabulous meal. The restaurant setting is really modern and appealing, the staff are very kind and helpful and most importantly the food is delicious! They do add a discretionary optional gratuity of 10% to the bill but you don’t have to pay this if you don’t wish to, just ask the waiter/ waitress to remove it when you pay. When we went at Christmas we didn’t pay it, instead we left a tip.  As you know, on this most recent visit we never got to see the bill – such are the joys of getting to review a restaurant- but we did leave a tip as we enjoyed our meal so much.

If you would like to book a table at a Bill’s restaurant near you then please click here.

You can keep up to date with the latest news and offers from Bill’s by signing up to their newsletter (link is in the bottom right-hand corner of their home page) or by following them on social media. Here are the links you need :- twitter   facebook   Pinterest   Instagram    I also recommend you have a read of their blog.

Thanks for reading my review….I apologise if seeing all these photos has made you hungry though!