Crown & Anchor — Restaurant in Chichester

Difficult place to review. I think it reality I would rate my experience a 3.5, but can't really show that here out of 5, so I'll round up to give the benefit of the doubt.

The service is friendly and mostly attentive, perhaps a little slow. The one drawback is lack of training in some areas. For example, we were given fish knives for our main courses but these were not sharp enough to cut the grilled hispi cabbage side - for that you need a shaper knife. My oysters didn't come with an oyster fork or a spoon for drizzling the shallot vinegar. This is weird for a restaurant that specialises in seafood.

Our main courses were good but our starters were mixed. An excellent octopus carpaccio with a really well-matched sauce came with excellent garlic buttery scallops - both very good and recommended. But we also tried the tuna carpaccio, which was godawful. Poorly sliced, stringy, and tasteless, it needed a lot of salt. The sauce or dressing it came with was a poor match flavour-wise, and the melon in it was not ripe or sweet enough to work in the dish. Should have taken it off the menu that day.

The location and rooms are excellent. It's a fabulous place to eat with a lovely view over the estuary. The staff are nice and helpful but lack attention to the finer details. The food is good but its price and ambition appear to exceed the ability of the cooking team to deliver it consistently well. I think you're paying for the location and the quality of the ingredients - which are top notch, in fairness.

I would stick to simpler dishes if coming here. And I don't think it works as a romantic spot for the evenings as the polish just isn't quite there.

Come for lunch, have a course or two and have a lovely walk afterwards. 3.5, but rounded up to 4 for the location and the quality of...

It’s a shame to be writing this as I’ve heard so many good things about this place. I was watching all the burgers go by which looked amazing, so I opted for a fish burger. £18, it wasn’t too bad but the ratio of batter and fish was a little disappointing. The fish should shine through with glorious batter but unfortunately the fish was lost. Tasted ok but could do with being more fish for sure. Beef burger was said to be nice from my friends opinion. Looked great. Lute warm chips but it was busy so it’s understandable. The main issue for me was what was said to be a salad with smoked mackerel. Also said to be a main but my honest opinion is it’s more of a small plate opposed to a main. The size of it was actually ridiculous! There was a piece of smoked mackerel laid upon 3 pieces of tomato which didn’t equate to a whole tomato and 6 cut new potatoes which equated to only 3 whole new potatoes with the fish sat on top. Now I know costs are going up and possibly portion sizes slightly smaller, to deal with the general cost of things going up, but jeeeez guys!! That dish really shouldn’t be on the menu as a main. Honest opinion again, more veg please. I shared the salad with my partner alongside sharing the fish burger and after sharing the salad into half it looked like nothing on the plate. Do hope this helps you guys to adjust the amount of salad considered on the plate so others don’t make the mistake of buying it and being disappointed like me. Would’ve had a photo taken but I tend to only take photos of food that...

We have been coming to this pub for years and the standards have slipped big time. Arrived Saturday afternoon, it wasn’t even that busy like it normally can be. It’s not exactly reasonably priced but usually you wouldn’t mind paying that for good food and service but today we did not get that at all. The waitress was so miserable and rude, she plonked some overcooked chips in front of us and went to walk off. I mentioned that the chips are normally thin with Parmesan cheese and truffle oil not thick. She then replied that’s indoors and walked away. There was no offer of condiments or cutlery at all so I approached her at the food hatch where they seem to be cooking this food. To find her moaning about me to the girl behind the counter. I ask for condiments and she replies “they are over there on a stand, but most of them are on tables you can find them” There were no sauce bottles on any station which I had to search for and all the sauce bottles that were on peoples tables were also empty. Chips overcooked and very small portion for your monies worth. I then watched her treat all the other customers the same way. She took a plate of a pile of overcooked fried food to a lady plonked it on the table and walked away and then we witnessed the lady she served having to ask for cutlery and condiments to another waitress. It was clear to us all that this waitress does not enjoy her job or cares about her customers and the girl whom I’m not sure is a chef cooking in the hatch needs to learn how...