The George at Burpham — Restaurant in Arun

A Very Disappointing Experience. We had been to The George about 3 years ago & enjoyed a very good lunch in this beautiful location. This time we brought a friend who was visiting from Canada. The front of house staff were welcoming & attentive but even though we were the first to arrive, we waited a long time for the food to arrive. When the food did arrive it was immediately obvious that the chef had changed since our last visit. The quality of food was appalling for this style of restaurant and price of £103 for 3 people - for Lunch. The food presentation was very unappealing, bland and amateurish without any colourful garnish or finesse. My order of skewered roasted cod with curry sauce with roasted cauliflower & cauliflower purée was anaemic & tasteless except for the ‘curry powder’ which was unpleasant. ( What chef makes a curry sauce with curry powder?) I had to order a side order of ‘Spring Greens’ at £4 extra to provide colour & variety to the dish. However the leaves of only one kind of greens were highly salted, wet & tasteless. The cod was possibly steamed, not roasted, the curry powder mixed with some indeterminate, thick sauce was unpleasant, the roasted cauliflower looked overcooked,tired & the purée tasteless. My husbands order was a ‘scoop’ of Bbq brisket with an excess of sauce, accompanied by a similar shaped scoop of pink slaw with a disproportionate amount of liquid with coloured, but not crisp, hand cut chips- essentially stodgy. Our visitors battered fish was passable. The drinks list omitted the draught beers even though there were some available. Given the disappointing main courses we decided to forego any dessert and just have a cappuccino. Sadly even that was poor, tepid, watery, tasteless coffee covered in an excess of chocolate sprinkled on top to disguise the liquid beneath. The decor is lovely but unfortunately I can not recommend this restaurant & understand they have changed hands recently. The front of house staff will be put in the awkward position of having to deal with customer complaints about the food. If this restaurant is to survive they need to sort out the kitchen & get a new professional, competent chef. Normally the discretionary gratuity is not added to the bill unless it is for a large party. Tips should reflect level of service & when the kitchen / chef is poor, its the serving staff who suffer. Why did they add it for a party of 3? If the kitchen is poor the front of house staff won’t be able to afford to stay working in the establishment as their tips...

My wife and I visited The George last Thursday evening. We were looking forward to something to eat and a drink after such a hot day. I had already looked at the impressive website......."By the locals, for the locals, of the locals - and a warm welcome to everyone!" I was pleased to see very good reviews. Sadly there was no warm welcome for us. I’m not entirely sure what happened but having walked in we saw 2 miserable looking waitresses. I asked one of them if we should choose a table or do they seat us. A lady sat at the end of the bar working on her computer shouted across the room. She said there would be no more meals served (it was 7.45pm). She added they were expecting more people to arrive and all tables were taken. I looked around but couldn’t see any “reserved” signs. It was half full. We suggested we were more than happy to sit outside where there was plenty of room. But no.. she repeated there would be no food for us. We were dismissed like school children by this unfriendly and hostile lady (not sure who she is). She was scary. 😱😱. She then continued shouting orders at the waitresses. I wasn’t surprised they looked so miserable being spoken to like that. So yes we were very disappointed as we are locals too. There was a couple having a meal nearby who looked very uncomfortable with the treatment we received. We felt awkward and embarrassed for them as well as for ourselves. There wasn’t even an offer of a drink to soften the disappointment. So we left... we had to do the walk of shame in front of everyone. No nice warm welcome and no food for us. So embarrassing. So disappointing. Welcome support received from a nice chap sitting outside though.... We all agreed the staff presented as very stressed. Such a shame as the pub and surroundings are...

My daughter, partner, husband and myself went for dinner. Unfortunately not a good experience. Firstly though I must say the staff are amazing apart from the chef. We ordered a bottle of red wine. When it arrived it was plonked on the table without opening.. When we looked carefully at the bottle it had been opened and some of the wine had obviously been poured as a taster for someone else and maybe returned. The waiter apologised and replaced it with a full bottle. We ordered 3 steaks and a pasta dish. After waiting for a long time other customers who came in after us had already been served, our meals eventually arrived. My daughter had ordered a rump steak and Pepper sauce I had rib eye and her partner had rump steak. His steak as mine was OK. My daughters comprised of two small pieces of over cooked steak which was dry and tough. She did ask for med to well done but this was terrible. She asked the waiter to take it back which he did only to return minutes later with the same steak trying to tell us this is how it should be and explained the chef told him to explain to us what part of the cow it came from!!! Really.. He then offered her something else no more rump steak left which explains a lot. Probably the cut off from two steaks that were too big to serve. My daughter had been looking forward to a steak. So.. She ended up with a green salad, mine was OK but not worth the money. My husbands pasta was not nice but he didn't want to complain as the evening had already been ruined. The deserts were not much better so will we be back? A definite no. Great front of house staff though. They didnt charge us for her meal......