French Horn — Restaurant in East Hampshire

Wow where do I start. I have noted the other reviews so am aware we may have caught them on an off day, chef may not have been in / I chose the wrong dish. My wife and I go out nearly every Wednesday evening and have done so since the reponening of the last lockdown. Needless to say we have been to many local pubs many times and realised that we hadn't given the French Horn a go. I had pushed to visit a few times as I liked the look of the menu especially the polish slant. Before I detail, I would just like to say that the staff were amazingly friendly. Two items were not on the menu, the soup and the butternut squash curry which limited my wife's choice dramatically. She had two starters as her main meal which she enjoyed but it was average at best. I had a prawn starter which was again nice but average and then out came the polish dumplings. Well I have no words. OK so I have never had polish dumplings before but have had dumplings via other cuisines and countries before. The dumpling itself tasted like uncooked pancake and the meat was just tasteless. It was all swimming in what seamed to be cooking oil, covered with very greasy and fatty pancetta and the pickles and other accompaniments frankly looked and tasted like they were out of a jar. I note an earlier review stating the same thoughts with a reply from the French Horn saying that everything was fresh. I assume this does not include these pickles etc.. I simply could not eat this meal. Anyway my gist is this. You go out to hopefully have a meal that would be on a par with other places, that you could probably not cook yourself either at all or as well as the place you chose to eat at and so on. Our meal cost £63.00 which included a bottle of wine and 2 pints. When we go out to other pub restaurants our bill is usually between £60.00 to £80.00. We recently ate at a Thai. The food there is awesome and often have to take a doggy bag home. Including wine and pints the meal cost £65.00. Again recently at another localish pub restaurant, the bill was £73.00 with the same alcohol content but we both chose specials that were a little more expensive than main menu stuff. The meal was off the charts good. I could rattle on about other pubs and their good points and as important is how consistently good they each time we visit but this isn't the reason really for my review. As a independent business owner I need to know how I am doing so any review good or bad is welcome and needed. I do hope that I just made a bad choice on the day and that the quality issue was a one off / me being crazy fussy. We will go back to the French Horn to give the benefit of the doubt and would be pleased to report back in a more positive way next time. Oh as I side note, I am not sure if the French Horn are planning on a litte refit as the restaurant area is really very dated. Many of the local pubs we are visiting have recently updated which I think is a must apres Covid to entice keep clients, attract new clients, increase recommendations and not to lose out on the competition....

Came here for a night away with my partner, last minute spur of the moment thing, a little hard to get too because of recent road works but there were loads of signs saying that the French horn was open as usual, it took 10 seconds as for us to re route ourselves and we were there minutes later, we walked in and had a friendly greeting, everything was simple and they showed us to our chalet, the chalet was a small building in the car park, it was small but sweet, had a double bed with sink and a separate toilet area with a small shower, nicely decorated and clean, has a fridge and kettle, the only thing I would wish for would be better pillows but otherwise me and my partner were very happy with our cute little bargain night away. We had drinks in the garden and went in to see if we could get a table for dinner, we ordered from the Easter menu, we had starters and main. We both had lamb cutlets which tasted insane, it was cooked to perfection it was one of the best meals I had had in a long time, the French horn was a perfect little country pub for our...

Many years ago (too many) I visited The French Horn with my wife but at that time you were not sure if it was a Pub or Restaurant, Boy has that changed, Great Food served on hot plates..Great friendly service and the young man serving us understood the needs of myself and my guests all of us over 75. The food arrived spot on and quickly which surprised us seeing as the Restaurant was rammed. We all had the Sunday Roast Beef (£17.50) which included Cauliflower Cheese..Vegetables..and 3 or 4 slices Beef..excellent Roast Potatoes along with plenty of other veg. Timothy Taylor at £4.70..Stella.£5.00 followed by Coffee at £2.50 and £3.45 Latte the bill for the 3 meals and extras was £73.15 more than acceptable having had an exceptional meal. A really cosy efficient Pub with friendly staff. We will return to what, in my opinion, is the Best Sunday Lunch in the Alton area. Thank...