Food not as good as previous visits, but they still leave you wanting to go back
We've been to this Pig and its Brockenhurst sibling a few times , and have always left feeling that we've had a good time and looking forward to going back. No exception, though as I'll explain there were a couple of things about the food on this visit that I'm glad didn't happen first time.
The place first; its a hotel with big grounds that get overrun by day visitors on summer weekends. I have a feeling I might like it better in the winter . The hotel and restaurant are very nicely presented in a kind of older, rural, shabby chic kind of way but importantly a great deal of thought has clearly gone into how they want the much refurbished hotel and the result works very well indeed. Its a pleasure to be there.
The service is an enigma. On the one hand everyone is pleasant and helpful; on the other there are unexplained delays in the service both here and at Brockenhurst. There its often that everything that happens after the main course is slow. Here we waited quite a while for starters after which everything was perfect. Can't understand it and its down as a quirk in my book. On the other hand we rang the restaurant at 11.15 am and couldn't manage to guess which combination of the phone choices we were given might tempt someone to answer the phone. Yet when we did get through, the answer to an unlikely request of "our reservation is at 1.45. But we're close by now after an unexpectedly smooth journey; and chance we can come at 12?" We weren't at all hopeful on a busy and sunny Saturday, but they said yes so we turned up at mid-day.
They serve great bread here , and we also tried the rather nice little hake fishcakes before our starters turned up. I liked my broad bean and smoked bacon salad, but they hadn't skinned the broad beans, meaning that whatever the provenance of the beans, they looked and tasted like tinned. My main course of local cuttlefish and pork jowl featured a tasty and well cooked cuttlefish. Sadly at the base of the dish was a strong , no overpowering, sauce that in my view spoiled the dish altogether. My wife chose less adventurously but probably enjoyed her meal more. To be fair its the first time in this or any other Pig that I've been given a dish that just didn't work, for me anyway.
With coffee and some nice Vermentino and Grenache/Syrah by the glass our bill was £96. Despite the food setback, we'll go back without question, and indeed my wife and some of our daughters are booked in this week.