Hiltonbury Farmhouse — Restaurant in Eastleigh

Visited with family for a festive meal, however the experience was far from enjoyable. In short: the service was painfully slow, the food wasn't as advertised, they hadn't looked at our pre-order, and the bill was incorrect when it arrived. The whole thing was a headache.

The restaurant seemed to be covered by 3 waitresses, must have been understaffed as they barely ever looked our way and we had to get up and go to the bar each time we needed something. This meant our visit was 3 hours, which is way too long to be in any restaurant.

As we were having the festive menu, the restaurant insisted we pre-order, however after waiting 25- 30 minutes upon arrival for a waitress to come by, we found out that they'd never read our email and didn't have our pre-order prepared. After this, the starters did come quickly, but we've been seated 40 minutes already.

The festive turkey didn't come with pigs in blankets sausage rolls, or any bacon on the Brussels sprouts, and the pie was steak & ale, not venison and pancetta. Potatoes were hard & had been sat for a while, and the veg was either burnt or undercooked. We got the feeling they'd been caught off guard by our order from the festive menu and had given us the regular Sunday dishes instead (which was bizarre as they were expecting us). Upsides, there was a large amount of turkey and the portions were large. Food overall was fine but not worth the money.

There was a long wait on dessert however the restaurant was full by this time. There were other tables who had arrived an hour after us, eaten & left long before we even got the bill, so clearly we were just being ignored/forgotten.

When we asked for the bill, they had charged us incorrectly, and we waited a long time for it to be rectified. The till system didn't seem to be set up for the festive menu, and again, we had to flag someone down to pay & finally escape. No clue how they operate in the Christmas period if they can't charge it to the till correctly.

Wouldn't recommend this place - no apology or acknowledgement that they'd performed badly. The manager seemed annoyed to have to redo the bill. We were willing to overlook the initial blip with the pre-order but the experience just got...

Firstly, I can only review the experience I had on the night - which might not be representative of the place as a whole.

After reading plenty of good things about this pub, my partner and I decided to eat here (28.03.2024)

It took at least 10 minutes to be acknowledged that we had arrived.

It became apparent rather quickly that there were staffing issues with someone inexperienced waiting tables.

It was clearly noticeable the waitress was under too much pressure and out of her depth.

As a result we felt rushed from start to finish. We weren’t told about what was unavailable, specials of the day etc.

We could see people on nearby tables having the same experience.

At one stage my partner had her plate whipped away when she was not even half way through her main and still chewing - she didn’t even have a chance to say she wasn’t finished before it was gone.

I personally think that brilliant service leaves you with a great impression of a place regardless of any issues experienced.

I realise staffing issues can be out of the control of the pub due to unforeseen circumstances.

The only apology we got for the service was from a guy from behind the bar who brought the bill to the table. We had asked twice previously for the bill and he probably noticed from his position we had been waiting a while.

The quality of the food can balance out the evening if done really well. Unfortunately we found the food to be somewhat average for the price point when comparable to nearby local venues.

To spend £80 or £90 between 2 people for a very average experience on both the service and food front - it’s doubtful we...

Nice place, but I wasn't happy with 2 things... One way circuit...if you are on the back terase and want to go to toilet you will need to follow the white narrows...go all the way in circle to reach nearly the same place you left, but isn't a problem with that...the big problem it is when you need to go back to your table, will be a challenge...if you follow the narrows you will never rich back your table on that terase because it is one way circuit as I've mentioned without any way to the terase...there us 2 place to enter to the terase from restaurant but both are closed with ropes...and because of this you are forced to enter under one of the rope and people and waitress they look to you...and nearly to say why you doing that... I asked same as my friend for the meat how to be cooked...his one perfect as per asking...my one...image to eat over 75% of meat uncooked with blood and that geli things...

The rest of the food from our table was good...fish was very good but the baby's potatoes not that good...burger was good but if you are one of the customers who doesn't like that tach of indian I'll not recommend you...but margarita pizza for kids was amazing...

You can see the working staff they working with stress and some difficulties including that face mask...one thing "funny"...they serve your food under that plastic protection, but when they clean the table they came next to you and ask for help with dishes...

Overall nice place to eat...but with some...