The Shepherd and Dog in Mid Sussex

Lovely old pub nestling in the village of Fulking, below Devil's Dyke. Friendly staff. Good beer selection.

Came here for lunch today and everyone's food was delicious. LOVED the chicken and mushroom pie

Good pub booked late in the day so they were out of some food ,but that is to do with the popularity of the pub

Loved it great food drink and friendly staff

Lovely but a bit unorganised, Felt like the staff had no plan of who was responsible for what and which areas of the pub. None the less we had a lovely lunch, good food, a lovely spot to grab Sunday lunch.

Catherine was genuine, attentive and friendly. Made our evening

Sunday roast was tip top, top drawer!

The perfect stop mid walk, great beer and food

Lovely walk before lunch and drinks, lovely Pub and beautiful scenery

Very expensive for what it is burger and chips x 2 bowl of chips x 2 I larger 1 coke 1 latte 1 glass of wine £77

Lovely place with amazing food!

A nice pub for a bit of lunch and a couple of drinks after a walk on the downs 👍🏼

One of my most favourite pubs in the area. Great food, great staff, beautiful setting.

Fantastic food and outdoor area but service was very slow

Delightful area of the countryside ideal for spending an afternoon basking on the terrace (or any of the lovely outdoor areas), enjoying the setting suns rays which catch this corner well into the evening.

You have to get your drink, excellent Sunday lamb dish, fast service

What a brilliant S&D pie of the day with chunky chips and gravy! I've never had better. The pie pastry is divine and the gravy was perfect too. There was ample filling of chicken and mushrooms. Proper firm tasty chunks of chicken filling the pie to the brim. Oh, and what fabulous gravy too - everything was piping hot and the pie was served on a luscious green bed of cavolo nero. Last but not least - the chunky trips, at least double fried, were faultless and plentiful. The Shepherd and Dog excelled themselves! Washed down firstly with some Gun Brewery stout followed with a small house red.

Excellent Sunday lunch in a beautiful country pub Recommended by TA and easy surpassed what we were expecting Top quality food with a great choice of local ales and ciders Requires pre booking and often a walk from the car it's not always easy to park close by

The daily special was Moroccan lamb pie. The flavour was beautiful. Thank you chef. The service and atmosphere was perfect. Thank you everyone at the Shepherd and dog. I am not often in the UK but I always choose to come here.

3 stars - one for food one for service one for atmosphere Extortionate price for food which was left 3 tables away for 10 minutes before it was given to my table 🙄 Place wasnt busy yet food took over 30 minutes! Staff very blunt Atmosphere felt lifeless

Good food, good beer and a perfect base for a trip to Devil's Dyke. As a curiosity, there are single-arm fittings on the toilet!

Went with the family. This pub is situated in the beautiful South Downs. The food was delicious and their range of locally brewed beers and ciders was very impressive (shame I was driving).

This pub appears to have been run for some years now by a person or persons who keep making frustrating silly decisions that prevent a 5 star review. It has arguably the best beer selection for a country pub, but the bar area was decimated a few years ago now. The garden is beautiful but food is never served within it. The doors from the carpark/garden are now for whatever reason closed so it's a confusing and silly walk to get round to the main entrance (honestly it's all everybody was moaning about in the garden). Somebody else was complaining about a £15 glass of wine. Bring back the garden BBQs and music in the summer. Keep the variety of beers because it's great. Please think carefully about the route from the garden back to the bar.

Great place to eat. Went there for Sunday lunch and enjoyed the pork roast. Crackling was very good. Very popular place. Would recommend.

Was great food as usual. The only thing that wasn’t great was we could only eat in certain seats and due to it being a bit busy we had to sit in table 26 which was a bit cramped for three guys. Unsure why you couldn’t serve food throughout the garden. But this was the only issue, otherwise all good 😇

A stunning pub (owing to its setting and period building) with a stream running through the beer garden - no doubt particularly lovely in summer. Food was just OK but I'd return for the setting.

Celebrated a family member's birthday here, last night. Excellent value for money food and brilliant service. Thank you to the Shepherd & Dog Team, we had a great time, and will be returning.

Frustrated. Service is excellent and welcoming. Lovely pub but somewhat annoyed that a large glass of Argentinian Malbec is £14 a 250ml glass and pint of Milk Stout is nearly £7. At these prices they are at London prices and this pub/restaurant is in Fulking, Sussex! We had two very nice tasting burger. One was a Korean chicken burger with french fries and the other a cheese beef burger with thick chips. However I would probably not repay the visit because it’s just too expensive for what is basically burger and chips and a couple of drinks at £80!! I would have to add that the staff serving both the drinks and food were excellent and it’s a lovely traditional pub.

Huge Disappointment - Not what it was :( This pub used to worth the run out to the countryside for beautiful scenery and even better Sunday Roast, but today our roast experience was completely disappointing - we won’t be back! We had booked a table for six well in advance as we had family down in sussex for the weekend and wanted to bring them here as a couple of years ago we’d had the best Sunday roast ever. We arrived at 5:15 for our booking on time to be told, not meat, no vegetarian options, only half of desserts available. It was completely unacceptable for an advance Sunday roast booking. After id had a very disappointing chat with the manager she managed to find two lamb roasts which two of us took and said there were steak pies we could have with roast trimmings, but later came back and told they had actually gone. So the rest of us had a combination of burger and chips and cauliflower cheese with roast trimmings. If we hadn’t have travelled several miles to get there I would have left at this point. The food it’s self was sub-par, not to a standard that was even average. The roast potatoes looked and tasted like they had be reheated and cooked several times and were clearly the bottom of the pan. Rock solid small and tasteless. The gravy was not their usual gravy and clearly something from the cupboard. Staff kept forgetting cutlery and condiments. The was no custard for the crumble - all in all a complete disaster and will not return again. Manger tried to make apology by providing some free drinks and stuffing - which we appreciated but it did not go very far to salvage the experience.

Fantastic food. We were staying nearby and walked down to the pub. Lovely, cosy traditional country pub. The staff were so friendly, food was really nice and so reasonable. We did their 2 courses for £20, food was really tasty and good portion sizes. Would definitely go back.

The pub was cosy, the staff were nice and the food was tasty (I have been here several times before) but the low rating is because I had the courgette fritters at a whopping £19 as my meal (a main) and it was SO tiny (think something like the size of three half-size falafels on a bit of hummus) that I felt both hungry and ripped off. I don't normally complain but I did in this case, explaining that even though it tasted nice, it was unforgivably small for that sort of money. If they'd knocked some money off the bill or offered me a free side I'd have been less annoyed, but now I am, and it would put me off eating here again as a veggie. When I saw the size of the portions for say, the burgers or fish and chips, I could not understand how I'd been given that tiny thing as a main. Sad times and the sort of thing that loses you a fairly regular customer if you don't offer anything to put it right.

Fantastic Sunday roast, so happy to see a really good selection of gluten free food on the menu and a great selection of gluten free beers! Only let down was just 1 gluten free pudding, a chocolate mousse. Will go back for sure and if more GF deserts pop up on the menu it’ll be 5 stars for sure!

Fantastic place. Only gripe is how busy it is so reviewing well is shooting my self in the foot but oh well 🤷‍♂️

Lovely small country pub with plenty of great walking routes from the car park.

My sister and I loved our Sunday roast here. The pub is in a beautiful setting, with the South Downs right behind and to the side of it. When we arrived, we were warmly welcomed. Our waitress was fantastic and attentive even though it was busy. Food arrived quickly and was delicious, especially the swede mash, which I never expected would be one of my favourite bits of the roast! Pudding was equally good. I'd definitely bring people here to show off a British Sunday roast.

This was our first visit to the Shepherd and Dog and it will be our last. The Sunday lunch menu was very different to the sample menu on the pub's website, offering far less choice than was promised. We had hoped to enjoy a three course meal but the only starters on offer were soup, humus or a sausage roll with brown sauce. The venue seemed to be woefully understaffed and when our waitress eventually came to our table she took a drinks and food order at the same time. Our food arrived before our drinks. We asked for our drinks and the waiter said he would chase them but after five more minutes there were still no drinks. I went to the bar and the bar man told me he still couldn't provide our drinks because he was too busy. I explained that our food was already getting cold and he replied most people prefer to eat their food first before getting their drinks. Eventually we asked for our food to be returned to the kitchen and brought back when they were able to serve our drinks. The food was disappointing. The pork was so fatty we couldn't eat it. There was no attempt at service recovery. The restaurant was very very cold and after a while it became uncomfortable.

Nine of us sat down for Sunday lunch resulting in several different dishes being ordered. Everyone said how good their meal had been and I thought that the roast beef was as good as I have had for a pub lunch. This clearly wasn’t meat that had been pre sliced and then warmed up with gravy but felt more like it was freshly carved from the joint before serving. Service was friendly and efficient, and even though we had all had to drive over an hour from different locations in order to get together, we felt it had been worth choosing this place. Hopefully we can do it again, but in nicer weather

The menu descriptions did not do the entrees justice, particularly the trout

With the long-distance help of Jenny, I put together a Sunday lunch for 24, held in The Barn. I live 13,000 miles away in Western Australia, so I had to depend entirely on management and staff before I travelled there in October 2024. It was a brilliant occasion, the service was great, the food superb & the venue gave me the opportunity to bring together so friends, many not seen in a long while - young & old. I can not rate this pub highly enough. It was everything I wanted and more. Thank you all, bar staff, wait staff, chef & his team, and most of all, Jenny, for coordinating everything. Well done - and dare I say, I'm not the easiest person to please, having been in hospitality some 40 years including being a restaurant judge. It all came together on the day; wonderful. NB. Perth, Western Australia.

I came here Last Sunday and had an absolutely brilliant meal, first we had a pastrami trout to share and the balance between the flavours just matched, I had a lamb roast and my partner had a fish and chips, portion sizes were very worth it for the money, we were both stuffed even from being on an empty stomach. All the drinks are fantastic from wine to beers, being sourced from local brewers, I recommend you go to see which drink you prefer. Overall a superb experience and will definitely be back!

Sunday roasts used to be amazing. Much more mediocre last weekend. Meat done well. Sides, veggie options and puds not nearly so good. Serving staff seem to be aware.

Went for a roast here as I remember the food being great. However, the lamb was so pink it may as well have been raw. That aside, the potatoes were delicious, and they gave you a good serving of gravy which is rare in most pubs! They also do a fantastic non alcoholic beer on tap which is nice as usually it's only small cans in most places and they do a good selection of alcoholic drinks. The dessert was good. Was a little cold in there so take a jumper! Beautiful garden for summer and in a beautiful location. Service was great.

With the help & assistance of Jenny, we organised a 'Family & Friends' lunch for 24. I live 13,000miles away in W. Australia & had to rely entirely on Jenny & her team to format this [for me, an 80th birthday celebration] lunch, combining friends of 65 years with more recent acquaintances. It was brilliant, great food, great service, good atmosphere; thoroughly enjoyed by all - we had 'The Barn' exclusively for 3hrs & I could not have been happier. I have been in the hospitality industry for 40 years, organised functions from 10 to 4,000 persons, a Gold Plate restaurant judge & review writer; I am not easily pleased but was this time x 110%. Jenny & her crew - bar, service & kitchen deserve every accolade going. Well done to all involved - true professionals. NB

Absolutely amazing service and amazing food !! Had a lovely lunch with my parents and everything was exceptional ! Such lovely and friendly service with beautiful food 10/10

Lovely birthday meal for my son.xx staff and food excellent

Banging root veg crumble roast and cauliflower cheese. Great selection of beer too. The red cabbage was tasty too

Great food and an extensive beer menu service was quick and staff polite. but if can get busy and noisy if you're in the extension.

Sunday roast was delicious, really enjoyed the pork. The potatoes, carrots, red cabbage and Yorkshire pudding were so good! 🤤 I also had the apple crumble, which was a massive portion! The crumbles may need some more butter in the batter but otherwise nice. Service super friendly and regularly checked on us. We came with a dog and they brought us a bowl of water for him. Defiant recommend coming here!

We were met by wonderfully helpful and friendly staff who couldn’t do enough to ensure our visit was a good experience. Being quite elderly our appetites aren’t what they used to be so we asked for children’s portions, this proved to be no problem at all. The pub has plenty of room indoor and out and we opted for the latter as the weather was good and the surrounding countryside magnificent. Service was prompt, the food itself was what one might expect from an establishment with so many covers and that is so popular. A generally good experience.

Chose this pub as it was only a 10 minute walk away. Was hoping for the lamb shank (as on the sample menu) but it was not on the current menu. However, we did have a good meal and good service, and would eat here again.

The small plates were delicious 🤤 and the staff were extremely friendly xx

Lovely little pub in the middle of the sussex countryside , great outside area, staff were very friendly and helpful, food was delicious and we'll presented, definitely recommend a visit, you won't be disappointed

Waited over 30 mins after drink arrived, then had to ask someone to take food order. First ribeye full of gristle. Was replaced with second one which was worse. Refunded meal only after debate with manager. Very disappointing

Beautiful nature all around, hidden historical pub, best Sunday roast. Playground for kids in the garden area. Lovely stuff, good booking system.

Fabulous Sunday roast, the table service was good unfortunately only one person on the bar so service was very slow

Lovely location. Sat in the sun and had a superb meal

The food at the weekend was massively disappointing. I ordered the nut roast which was the worst I have ever had, it looked like cat food. The carrots were hard and the potatoes were missed off the plate. I waited an hour and asked for sauce that never arrived along with the cutlery.

A beautiful setting to sit and eat in the sun. We called and booked as it was recommended. Staff very polite and friendly a bit of a wait but not a problem as the sun was shining 🌞. We both ordered a lamb roast with extra potatoes which we didn’t need as so much meat. The lamb was quite tough and fatty that was our only complaint but other than that was a very nice dinner. Vegetables were plenty crisp and fresh. Would still recommend.

We ate here this evening. I've never felt moved to rate a dining experience before, but the food and, in particular, the service were both terrible. The rudeness and attitude of the Manager was so genuinely shocking that we were left wondering if we'd accidentally stumbled on a Fawlty Towers dining experience by mistake. The pub and setting are both lovely, we've been there many times before, but I would really discourage anyone thinking of dining there at the moment.

Lovely country pub in a great location

Very picturesque traditional pub with great selection of craft beers on tap and a beautiful garden at the foot of the South Downs.

Lovely pub, great food in big portions, lots of beers and a nice atmosphere.

Fab little place with friendly and helpful staff. Food was amazing 👏 well done chef 👨‍🍳

The pub is a traditional English pub with a limited bar menu. Popular with walkers and awash with numerous dogs it is typical of its genre - the smell of chip oil greets you in the car park. Sadly I was very disappointed as the food choices were poor and my risotto was completely tasteless. Husband had the fish and chips - enough said. Glass of white wine was lukewarm and I left half of it. Asked for salt and pepper and the salt-pot was unusable asked for another and they forgot. The worst bit was the toilets which were so smelly - I do not know if they have a septic tank there but they need to do something about the odour.

Went here for a wedding reception. The location is out of the way, but apart from that, it seems like a nice country pub. There is a big range of different beers (although on the higher price scale) And the food we had was top notch. There is a carpark but it has limited spaces. You can park on the roadside though. There is outside seating with a small play park. There is a pathway that goes along a small stream, which kept the kids busy.

Very tasty, safe gluten free food!

Went for a family occasion, and it was a very special place to have this event.

Great variety of gluten free beers 🍻 👌 😀

Excellent Saturday lunch time meal. We didn’t book, turned up and had lots of seating free on a pleasant day. Service was efficient, drinks and food was a fair price considering prices these days. Fish and chips and large camembert were fantastic size portions. Would highly recommend for all the local area and will be going back.

had a .mushroom burger and low alcohol pint which was delicious! l

Great little country pub. Well worth a visit.

Great food in a lovely rural pub. Staff are super friendly and great selection of local ales.

This pub takes the p1ss. They are an awkwardly placed pub but boy do they charge. £4.30 for a J20. £30 quid for a 2 course meal. But they seem busy so there must be alot if Rich 1diots out there.

4.30 for a J2O, 30 quid for 2 courses. more expensive than a central london joint. Busy so I can only assume that their are alot of rich 1diots in the world.

The location is super as is the actual pub and the ale was excellent. The food was dreadful. There were five of us, we all had different things. The steak was like shoe leather, the crispy belly pork, soggy and tough, the chicken salad bland and the fish and chips well it ended up in the dog, so I guess she was happy! Such a shame as it really is a lovely pub in a special location.

Bit of a gem this pub. Great location just off the South Down Way. Starters were a good - chicken wings, mushrooms on toast, baked camembert. My main course was fab - pie of the day (chicken & chorizo) with crispy potatoes and gravy, faultless. Beer on tap was good too.

Had salmon with asparagus salad - simple but delicious. Dined alone and had a glass of wine which was £15.50. I would suggest the customer should be told if the wine ordered is so expensive. Luckily I didn't order a second glass. I ate the day before at a similar pub and the wine was £9 a glass, which is still expensive, but seems to be the going rate.

Lovely walk to this pub. Enormous dinner size. Unfortunately they ran out of fish and chips but the chicken was also really good. Great service from the staff were moved tables 3 times (searching for sunshine).

I think the pub is the victim of its own success in that the staff struggled with the volume of people coming to eat Sunday lunch, which impacted on quality and length of time waiting for food. It’ll be better to have a few less tables. Parking is also very difficult at this peak time.

Fantastic traditional pub in a beautiful scenic setting. The GM & often chef Stephen serves excellent quality food. Highly recommend :)

Absolutely lovely pub - great food, really friendly staff. Definitely book ahead!

They hosted my birthday gathering…18 people in all, and were superb. Food and staff excellent. Despite my messing up the orders they sorted it quickly and without fuss. Highly recommended!

Shepherd & Dog is a great pub and restaurant. The food is really good. Nice variety and options. The drinks are excellent too.

We enjoyed a delicious Sunday roast with pork and beef accompanied by a good beer and a very good Italian wine (noted Spanish by mistake on the menu). I recommend this traditional English Sunday dish, served with roasted vegetables, to-die-for cauliflower gratin and a big sausage.

I was surprised by the high quality of the food. I had the lamp which was cooked to perfection. And I'll have to admit: my French prejudices about English people overcooking meat were wrong (in this case anyway). Great rural atmosphere as well, and quite authentic. My advice: hike your way down from the parking lot at Devils Dyke, it only takes around 30min. Or even better if you're in good shape: hike all the way from Brighton, it's not that far (12km) and it's nice all the way.

I had Sunday lunch yesterday. Although we booked in advance we were kept waiting 40 minutes for our table because someone else was using it. We were told there was no service at the tables outside next to the stream but a few minutes later a waiter delivered food to other people in that area. Having ordered our food (table 20) it hadn’t arrived 40 minutes later. When I asked about it the waiter told me it was my fault because we arrived late!!! We arrived 15 minutes early. He didn’t apologise for the delay and said it was an hour long wait for the food- he didn’t say that when we were ordering. He was laughing and smirking at me and had a very arrogant attitude and clearly didn’t care about customer service at all. I’m not going back to the Shepherd and Dog anymore!

I’ve been coming for many years and Went with some friends for Sunday lunch arriving 15 minutes early for the booking. I asked if we could change our table to one over the stream and was told We couldn’t as food wouldn’t be served there as the garden behind was closed. As people at our table we’re still eating we told the server we would wait elsewhere so we could wait for the rest of our party and they could finish their lunch. On return we walked past someone bringing two Sunday lunches out to the spot we asked if we could move to. Hen we got to the table I booked, other people were sitting at our table and were moved. The food took 40 minutes to arrive leaving us little time to eat before the next booking. Our server told us it was because we were late! Which we corrected. Luckily they moved the next booking. The lunch is high quality if a bit overpriced and was luke warm when it eventually arrived as was the entire experience.

This had so much potential, but was let down by a few things. First, the good bits. Quick service, attentive staff and a great setting. The meat was good and the kids absolutely loved the nuggets (best nuggets EVER apparently). Unfortunately the rest of the food wasn't great. The Yorkshire puddings were dry, like they've been reheated from the day before, the roast potatoes were soggy and the cabbage was chewy. It was really busy and the area we had (conservatory?) was so loud we couldn't have a conversation without shouting. None of us had a particularly enjoyable afternoon. (Maybe some kind of carpeting would help the booming echo of that room...or maybe moving bigger groups to another part of the pub and keep the smaller groups in that area. We all said it had potential, and we might come back in the summer, but wouldn't recommend it on a day where you had to sit inside.

Great food and service, looked after all the family, including the dog on his birthday

Second visit, and once again, a little disappointed. While the pub boasts a nice atmosphere and an impressive beer selection, the menu felt somewhat limited and uninspired. The food itself was fine, but didn't live up to the pub’s reputation (or the price). Service, however, remained excellent.

Gorgeous Sunday roast last weekend. The potatoes were a bit overdone and dry and the lamb was slightly more cooked than I’d prefer but the flavours were great and it all still tasted delicious. The young lady who served us was perfectly attentive.

Really good food and selection of beers

Excellent food in a lovely location and a nice beer and wine selection

Very friendly team, clearly run off their feet as the roast took over an hour. Pretty standard roast, exceptional carrots though.

Amazing food, excellent service. Beautiful location.

Great food and ambience. Very helpful staff.

Lovely food but with a roaring open fire we were unlucky to be very cold at the other end of the room.

Great little gastro pub at the foot of the south downs. Ideal place to visit mid way through or at the end of the walk. Terrace and beer garden if the weather's good. Fantastic beer selection from the local area. Welcoming to dogs and muddy boots. If you want food there's a great selection of small plates. The wings and squid were fantastic although the menu changes. Great mains selection and the roasts on a Sunday are tasty and good value. Welcoming and helpful staff

We came here for lunch as we had family visiting and wanted to try somewhere new in the local area. We were all really impressed and had a great time. The pub was cosy and warm with the fire on, the staff were friendly and the food and drinks were delicious. We'll definitely be coming back. Thank you! Parking was a bit busy as it was a Saturday and is a popular place for countryside walks but we managed to park and there were some spaces on the road if not.

Great pub after a glorious walk. Fantastic roast dinners. Great service from warm friendly staff.