Hare & Hounds — Restaurant in England

After leaving dinner plans to last minute, we went here on our way off the island with the basic expectation of an average meal. On arrival we were greeted by a friendly guy behind the bar, who told us they could fit us in and showed us to a table. After around ten minutes we were asked for our drink orders, a few minutes later we were told they did not have what we asked for so we ordered alternatives which were incorrect when they were eventually brought to the table.

Unfazed by the lack of options or the mix up, we waited 20 minutes to order our food and had to ask someone over to do so. Whilst we waited we realised that our drinks were not the best, the beer tasted of nothing and my son's lemonade had two random lemon seeds at the bottom of his glass, despite there being no actual lemon slices and this understandably put off a slightly fussy 11 year old. After placing our food order we were once again told some time after, that our choices were unavailable so we chose alternatives.

At this point the experience was already starting to go downhill, but the real horrors were yet to come!

My son ordered the Hunters chicken which lacked any flavour and had overcooked meat you could have chewed for hours; he did his best to try everything on his plate but it was mostly inedible. Myself and his mother both ordered the pie, "rosemary chips" vegetables and gravy, which I had actually considered a rather safe bet. The contents of the pie was a struggle to get to, but once you had chiseled your way through the rock hard pastry, the strange gelatinous "meat" was certainly there, where it remained after a couple of horrible mouthfuls. The chips tasted like they had been cooked in old oil, left for an unknown but an imaginably too long period, then heated in the microwave. The carrots were expertly cooked to a state where they were as close to tasteless liquid as possible, but just retained their original shape. The cabbage was so overcooked in the microwave all that remained was a grey mush that needed no further investigation to determine how it might taste or not. Surprisingly, our third choice for our daughters meal, the "pizza" was the least offensive thing their kitchen produced, although it was still pretty terrible. For the sake of comparison let's just pretend that a well known supermarket "Chicago" style pizza you can microwave is a ten, this hard pastry bowl of red and yellow would be around a four. I really hate wasting money on uneaten food, so my son is nearly always encouraged not to waste anything, but I feel that sort of behaviour in front of these plates could be considered abuse. We were hungry, we were tired and we had paid sixty pounds, but we were at a crossroads here and choosing a life after the consumption of these meals was certainly going to bring nothing good our way. So in the end we left our almost full plates, vacated the premises and went home as fast as we could.

If you need to buy dinner for someone who has wronged you, or you simply want a meal so bad that it's funny, this is the place for you, for anything else, keep driving until the Hare and hounds disappears from your...

We chose to eat here as a family of 3 whilst on holiday for an evening meal. (02/07/25) We drove past numerous times commenting on how beautiful the building was and we would try them for food. We'd read a few mixed reviews before coming but thought we would give them a chance. How wrong we were. We arrived for 8pm. On arrival we were initially greeted in a friendly manner. We were taken to a table in the conservatory? area which was a shame as the other side looked much prettier and had plenty of availabile seating. Very grubby and run down in places with flies all round our table. Toilets were also the same. However the garden was very pretty. Our drinks orders were taken at the bar and told they would bring them over. 20 minutes later we had to go up to the bar as they'd been forgotten. A very awkward stand at the bar while the lady although friendly struggled to remember how to make the drinks and took quite some time. An extremely long wait for our food but tried to be patient and understanding as there seemed to be only 2 members of staff and in their defence they were constantly on the go back and forth and looked stressed. Starters came out the camembert was undercooked but at that point we were so hungry we just ate without complaint. Main meals came out, steak came without onion rings so I asked for them and the man was very abrupt and rude to me. Steak was the worst steak I've ever recieved. It was grey and the texture terrible. I had 2 mouthfuls off my plate and couldn't stomach anymore. The man came to ask how our meals were and I didn't want to upset anyone after his reaction over onion rings so I just replied nice thankyou. Felt so uncomfortable. If we hadn't have already ordered the desserts we would have left. The desserts in fairness were very good. I demolished my sundae as I was so hungry 😩 very upset with the service we received as tried to be so patient and understanding then to be spoken to like that no matter how rushed you are I feel is very unfair. When we had finished and left there were no staff around at all to greet you etc or see if you enjoyed your meals. Overall a very disappointing visit and we won't be returning or recommending. Its a shame as on first impressions its a good menu and extremely fair prices. We even found a special menu when we sat down (after ordering) we discussed coming back to try it out if we enjoyed this meal. Unfortunately not. We should have trusted the previous reviews...

We had driven past the pub a few times and thought from the outside it looked quite pretty with the peacocks wandering around in the gardens and decided to have an evening meal there.

When we entered the pub there was zero atmosphere and it looked really tired and old. The lady behind the bar looked extremely stressed out even though she was only dealing with one customer and the chap who I believe was the manager who came from a back room didn’t look much better. I ordered 2 pints of coke and a non alcoholic cider and the total was nearly £14! I checked the price as I thought that was expensive and she said the pints of coke were £4.20 each. As we didn’t have anywhere else in mind to go for food we took the chance (this came back to bite me in the backside!) We were told that there would be a 30 minute wait as they were very busy, I should point out they had 1 table of approximately 8 people, a table of 6 outside, our table of 3 and another couple.

Whilst waiting for the food I popped to the loo and it was disgusting. There was dirty, wet toilet paper strewn on the floor, my shoes stuck to the floor as it clearly hadn’t been mopped in god knows how long and the back of the door of the cubicle I used was filthy! Hand washing facilities were also gross.

We ordered gammon, egg and chips - be warned they charge extra for onion rings! We also ordered a bacon cheeseburger and a main course of their “fancy” mac n cheese. The menu is VERY minimal. It took nearly 45 minutes to arrive and it looked ok at best. The food was very bland and to be honest for the price and the wait we were really disappointed with the overall quality of what we had been served. The mac and cheese was burnt on the top layer which gave a bitterness to the whole dish, the chips which were served with the gammon were warm to the touch but also soggy and the bun for the burger was very hard. We ate what we could and scarpered from the pub as quickly as possible. It’s not an experience I would care to repeat.

When we left I mentioned to my family that I felt really ill, we drove back to our holiday accommodation and I felt dreadful the whole way. As soon as we got back I ended up in the bathroom violently throwing up and having a really poorly tummy.

Personally I would avoid at all costs. I couldn’t recommend it to anyone...