King John Inn — Restaurant in England

From the outside, this is the quintessential, classic, English country inn which is confirmed upon entry with beautifully decorated and appointed rooms. The food was also delicious, which one would expect, given the price point, but nonetheless it exceeded expectations, though I do question that the 8oz ribeye was closer to 5-6oz. Anywho, my one major gripe and the reason this review doesn't get five stars and only gets the one measly star, is that the bedroom was cold and a bit damp with the onset of autumn. After realising that the radiators were not functioning, I asked the young woman at the reception for the central heating to be put on as the radiators and towel heater were not on. She said "of course" and I was assured the central heating would be turned on so that our room would be "nice and warm" by the time we had finished dinner. It is very late September and temps dropped into the low teens overnight. During our meal, I was subsequently told that the heating wouldn't be turned on 'just yet' as it "gets too hot downstairs for the guests in the bar area." which I find strange as radiators can be adjusted and lowered individually and oh yeah heat rises and there are windows that can be opened to ensure optimum comfort for thirsty patrons. Anyway, we finished our meal and went to our room and lo and behold the room was still about 14-15C and dropping and still the radiators were as cold as the blue stones at Stonehenge. Completely unacceptable. Why not provide a space heater then if you don't want to spend the money on heating the room for your paying guests? We went straight to bed wearing our clothes to keep try and keep warm. It completely ruined the evening and our experience. My wife now has a sore throat and I am sure the cold damp air contributed. I really wanted to give this inn a five star review, but that meant their advertisement should have read: "The rooms are lovely and we make every effort to help you enjoy your stay with us, but we keep the heating off because we don't want the bar/restaurant area (punters) to get too warm." That would have been honest. While the UK doesn't have laws regarding hotel room temps (shocking, I know) the UK.gov guideline says 20c or 68F in old money, is the expected room temperature norm. This unfortunate experience was a good five degrees short of that comfort threshold. What I really didn't appreciate is being lied to by the staff, not once but twice. The staff and no doubt, the miserly owner, knew there was no way in hell that they were going to turn the central heating on for us, or anyone else for that matter. We found a thermostat in the stairwell it was set to 16.5C —this was in an area where the heat from kitchen and bar are would keep it significantly warmer. It was locked. So despite the inherent aesthetic lure and charm we strongly suggest that other travelers stay elsewhere. We definitely won't be coming back.

Update: Waiting for you to...

We have been coming to The King John for years. Sadly now Butcombe have taken over, standards have gone down drastically. We have seen a huge change in the quality of food and sadly now it is all just very average. It was always outstanding and a real pleasure having this pub on our doorstep but now we are looking elsewhere. Last night my Husband and I went for supper and we came away actually saying unless it changes we won’t come back. We ordered our food only to be told that they had run out of mussels ( I was really looking forward to those) and the Pie which my husband wanted was also unavailable. I opted for two starters and my husband ended up with a burger. He was going to have steak but they had run out of mushrooms. We both ordered the artichoke soup with sourdough for our starters only to discover later that it was in fact cauliflower soup with brown Hovis shop bought bread. (Really?!) We weren’t told this before eating it and although it was fine I just feel that if either of us or anyone else in fact was allergic to cauliflower or brown bread they would have been in trouble. Brown shop bought bread is very different to sourdough. We were told later by the waitress that they ran out of artichokes and hadn’t made sourdough. The menu wasn’t changed which I think is a bit naughty. We were also told that apparently no produce order for the kitchen had been placed by the Manager for a while so stocks were low and so the chef was literally working with what he had left which is a tough call for him! We were informed that all the food is brought in pre prepared. Where’s the skill? Such a disappointment. Cooking is a passion of mine and I am an accomplished home cook so when I go out I want to be wowed and feel like I’m having a treat. I could have done a better job myself last night but instead we parted with over £100 for very poor food. The old loyal clientele of The King John (which we are) know what good food tastes like. They’re are willing to spend that little bit extra for quality food cooked by a proper skilled chef. Now it’s turned into a run of the mill pub with average pub grub not cooked that well. Such a shame. I hope this pub gets its act...

We finally managed to get a date in the diary to book Sunday lunch on 27 August which we were very much looking forward to.

Firstly, the staff are lovely, warm and welcoming. However, the meal was unfortunately extremely disappointing.

Our starters were quite nice, I had the pea hummus, it was nice, but the flavour would have been enhanced if served at an ambient temperature and not straight from a cold fridge.

My partner had the broccoli with burrata, he enjoyed this.

I had roast beef for main course, despite it being advertised as “medium rare” I can confirm it was far from that. I would also add that the wording of “greens” is overstated as there was only a small portion of green cabbage. You'd need to order more vegetables from the menu.

My partner chose chicken, at a price of £17.50 it would be only reasonable to assume the chicken would be a breast and not a chicken leg (I would also add the chicken leg was dry). The stuffing was also missed off the meal, however, this was rectified and at that time. We did comment that if the chicken is just a leg, the menu should specifically say that (had my partner known this at the time, either by reading it in the menu or being told at the time of ordering, he would not have chosen it)

We would have considered a dessert or cheese, but unfortunately although we sat there for 15/20 minutes we were not offered, so we decided to pay and leave.

I would finally add that I looked up the Sunday lunch menu (before booking) and both the description and more importantly, the prices need to be updated.

I'm disappointed and sorry not to be able to give better feedback. I did email Butcombe directly after our visit, but have not...