The best restaurants in Romsey Extra Test Valley South East

Great Indian takeaway, simple phone ordering service, 25minute turn round very good for a saturday night, efficient at collection(easy parking right outside as well), food ready bang on time, very reasonable prices and very pleased with food quality (lamb passanda a top choice!) and good portion sizes. Definitely will be using again

I recently stayed at your potters Heron hotel on 25th-26th October for my daughters birthday along with family, I was so excited to stay here. It’s a beautiful hotel from the outside and the restaurant menu looked great! When we arrived we were greeted by a gentleman on reception I believe he was the night porter, he was great! Check in was smooth he was polite kind and helpful with the few questions we had. This was about the best experience we had of Potters Heron. Rooms- rooms themselves were clean but the bathrooms were riddled with red mould in the grout and not overly clean. However we were willing to over look this as we were only stopping for one night. We headed to the restaurant for our table I booked at 8pm. We were greeted by a new member of staff who was very pleasant but didn’t seem to know what was going on. We were shown our table which was perfect then asked if we wanted drinks. The restaurant was cold empty and no back ground music so wasn’t very atmospheric which is a shame because the decor is so beautiful. Drinks were horrendous expensive took ages to come, We were asked by a stern lady if we were ready to order (assuming the restaurant manager) she took our order and my husband asked if he could swap his chips for salad on the rump as we had chips for lunch she said no sorry because we don’t have any salad. (My mum and her partner just order two Caesar salads) I proceeded to ask how the chef was going to make those if he had no salad. She laughed it off and said she forgot to tell us. My mums partner then ordered the lamb of which she replied oh we don’t have that either. She then recommended the chicken for my mum and she highly recommended the pork. So my husband and my mums partner order the pork. I ordered a cheesy garlic bread for my 2 year old daughter as she wasn’t overly hungry and they couldn’t do her any pasta. I ordered a bacon and Brie toasted sandwich. We waited about 30 minutes for mains and when they arrived we were so disappointed. Pork dishes. 1 had two pieces of pork, 4 carrots and a large amount of potato the 2nd dish One piece of pork two carrots and small amount of potato The chicken was tiny, smothered in sauce and the purée was cold. Garlic bread was so small it was barely worth serving, (£4.50)! My bacon and Brie toastie was ok but this will make you laugh! It came with a side salad!! Salad that they don’t have. Now I know it’s not the same as ceaser salad leaves but it was just mixed leaves and surely an alternative could have been offered using this and also could have been used for the side salad on the rump steak?! I tried to make contact with the lady a few times by eye contact twice she made contact back but never came up to see us. Eventually I had to signal for her to come up. I told her all of the above and she didn’t seem to think it was a problem and then went to get the “manager” He was very defensive and actually offensive. Again I spoke through the above. He told my husband he was luckily because he actually had too much food. (That’s not my problem) he then proceeded to say he wasn’t sure about the salad issue as that was unknown to him. The fact was we weren’t told when we sat down. The menu is fairly small anyway so taking those town dishes away makes it even smaller. I asked about the garlic bread and he said that’s what you get, I have to make my 75% GP. It was literally 1/4 of a ciabatta bread. I very much doubt it is costed like that. On average a ciabatta costs what 30p? So 7.5p per slice add the garlic butter surely the dish is not more than 10p to make. So he is making £4.40 on each mini garlic bread. Which is far more than 75% GP 1. I did not need to know this info as a customer 2. He is unfortunate that I work in a restaurant as a GM so I know how it all works. 3. I really hate complaining because it ruins my experience. Begrudgingly he offered to get 1 more piece of garlic bread, a piece of pork some more carrots. Did nothing about the chicken. He did not come back to see us during our visit. After some time the rest of the food appeared even though everyone had pretty much finished. We had to ask for dessert menus, ask for more drinks. I just want to add the food that was hot and on the pork dish was really nice. We declined desserts and decided to head to the room as we had an early start for a 3 year olds birthday. We paid the bill (in full not that we wanted to) On our way out we asked for a cooler with some ice as we had a bottle of milk for my little one in the room. The waiters reply was “ask someone else because I’m clocking off now” sorry I don’t have a name but it was a young lad in black with short black hair. I think I actually laughed because I felt embarrassed at the fact he just said no and it is a 30 second job. We had a good nights sleep in the room again, basic but bathroom needs some attention (room 8) We headed on down to breakfast where we took a small cake and a few candles for my daughters 3rd birthday. We asked the staff if they wouldn’t mind bringing the cake out after we finished food to present (we didn’t ask them to sing or anything just to light candles and present) The reply we got is we don’t think we will have time. Again a 2 minute job that makes a guests experience better and a memorable event. There were about 5 tables in the restaurant for breakfast at 8:30 and two people clearing tables ( you don’t have to serve as everything is buffet and help yourself) Again food was great and please pass that on to chef. We left the cake with the lady (breakfast supervisor?) Eventually she did bring it up and she was pleasant and wished my daughter happy birthday) I would love to hear your view on this and how you would have felt as a guest. Your staff here need a lot of customer service training. I know from listening to other people during the night we were not the only people complaining which is a shame as it is such a beautiful setting. This really did have a massive impact on our stay here and put a bit of a dampener on our whole visit to peppa pig world.