Brewhouse and Kitchen — Restaurant in England

There was a workman sanding the top of the door entrance on arrival that was awkward gaining access.

No one was behind the bar when we went inside & so waited for a few minutes for staff to arrive - not a good welcome at 1PM on a Monday lunchtime.

The micro-brew lager I had was OK, but I was expecting a lot more comparing to other micro breweries I have visited. It was nothing special & a tad flat. My wife had G&T and she said it was nice but the glass was worn & tired so it looked dirty - even though it wasn't - but that's off putting when going out to 'wine & dine'.

We were celebrating a birthday so we went for starters & mains from menu. It was a disappointment - and on leaving - there was a very young lady in the kitchen & I was left with the realisation our food had not been cooked by a very experience chef - which explains the quality issues we had with our 3 starters & main. See below for detail on the food items. Starter portion sizes were not value for money at all for £20.

Starters Bread & Oil - nice, no issues. Calamari - very very small portion for £7.50. I expected 5 or 6 whole ringlets for a starter. But it was more like 2 maybe 3 cut into smaller pieces to make it look more - but it was simply too mean a portion. It was slightly overdone, too, but tasty to be fair. Chicken Wings - Jalapeno. This was the best thing we ate out of everything - delicious! again, a bit mean on portion sizes - another 2 or 3 pieces would have made it more value for money.

Main We both had the chicken schnitzel, slaw, chips & onion rings. All the food coating was dark in colour - it had been deep fried too long and in dirty oil. That was obvious by colour of chips and the mixed taste - lingering of fish. The slaw was just purple cabbage with a slither of carrot. it was a bit shrivelled and not tasty at all - dry with no sauce of any kind. I was expecting a normal white cabbage mayo type slaw. The chicken was dry as it had been cremated. The coating was so crispy it was dark brown and breaking off. my wife couldn't cut hers with a knife but she is a bit of a weakling - but it was hard going. The chips were over done - no fluffy potato inside at all - but i was ok with that as I like crispy fries - but these were V crispy. The onion rings were greasy, tasted OK, but didn't look good.

Overall it was poor, edible yes, but portion sizes of starters too small, over done frying of the mains.

Would not go again. Even though it was Monday lunchtime - that is no excuse for a poor experience of an establishment that advertise themselves as a quality food place to eat in Poole, no where near. It was cold in there too , no heating. Still a cold spring day not summer time. Zero atmosphere at the time we visited - no one in the bar except us - should have cottoned on why no one else was there and left and...

We were a table of 12, we booked a meal before visiting the lighthouse theatre.

Two of us had fish & chips, it arrived with the fish looking really burnt, the batter was black in places. When cutting into the fish, the "fish" was bearly there !! The batter was hard & burnt !! Both of us tried not to complain & worked our way through the burnt batter ( the chips were nice) when the waitress took our plates after the meal, we advised her how terrible our meal had been & that she needs to tell the chef that the fish was burnt & not edible. (Worse fish & chips ever had ) she apologised for our bad experience & said she would pass our complaint onto the chef.

Upon paying, we thought that the bad meals may have been compensated, but the same waitress said, no sorry but she does apologise. At this stage, the manager walked into the bar & we spoke to him about how terrible our meals had been. He knew nothing about the complaint, (the waitress had not informed him) He immediately said he would refund us for our horrible meals.

We feel that the waitress had been very unprofessional in the way she handled the complaint, however once the manager knew about the situation he rectified it immediately - well done to him.

The rest of the meals were a combination of Dry / over cooked or ok !!

Unfortunately, we won't rush back, which is a pity because its a perfect location for people looking for a meal before seeing a show at the Lighthouse Theatre.

Brewhouse - You need a...

Just had a meal at this establishment for 6 people. This was booked in advance and upon arrival was seated. It took more than 20 minutes before anyone had asked if we wanted drinks, so I let this go and went to the bar for drinks myself. The waiter during this time took an order from the table next to us and also another order for the table across from us, no acknowledgement or otherwise that we were still waiting to order or the fact that we had to go to the bar and order our own drinks. A further ten minutes past before a young girl came across and asked "if we had been served" and took the order. A further 25 minutes past with the first table having had their meal and finished before ours arrived which in my case was lukewarm ribs and rather small battered cod fish when you consider that you are paying an average of 12 or 13 pounds per meal.

Over all the meal was satisfactory, but the service and time taken to get the meal is very poor. It was not as though they did not have enough staff, just staff who could not care less when it came to our table. Ended up paying a hundred pounds for 6 meals and a drink each. Had their been a service charge I would have refused to pay, but as it was it was my daughters birthday meal and I did not want to make a scene.

I don't like posting comments when they are not appropriate, but in this case was incensed to make a written comment...