Smoke on the Water Swanage — Restaurant in England

We really wanted to love this place but have just left feeling very disappointed. I feel bad writing this review when it’s such early days for this restaurant, but there really are changes they need to make so that they have a chance of surviving - unless they will rely on passing visitors. I believe the owners were sitting in the Resturant at the time of our meal, but surprisingly seemed to have little interest in the experience of their customers. I would have shared this personally with them, given the opportunity. I’ll start with the positives… nice setting, inviting menu, great skin on fries and a good cocktail!

But… the young waitresses had little clue about the dishes and were a bit like deer in headlights when asked any question. When the food arrived, we were surprised - not the quality we were expecting. The presentation is really quite bad and appearance is off-putting to begin with (think metal trays lined with grease proof paper and metal camping plates/bowls - chipped already - with the food plopped on top), the portions are small and the taste really is nothing special… the pork had a sloppy/compacted appearance like it had been pre-cooked and stored, beef was marginally better but both quite tasteless and fatty. The nachos were particularly bad… worst we’ve ever had and we dine out a lot! VERY dry, maybe the wrong cheese used as it had disintegrated under the heat of cooking (the kitchen did kindly provide more salsa/garlic sauce to make them less dry) and the sauces charged at £1.50 are less than a table spoon of sauce in the bottom of a little pot - maybe smaller pots would make the customers feel less ripped off. As it is now, we won’t be going back or...

Mixed bag this one. The place is nice, staff were good, service was fast, cocktail was really good but all of that was let down by the food. The fries were actually decent, well cooked and seasoned. Slaw was a bit too mayo but acceptable. Mac n cheese didn’t have much going on flavour wise and was too runny, you should be able to get a cheese pull from a good mac. Ribs were a decent bit of meat at heart but again lacked flavour and seemed to have just been grilled rather than smoked. Same with the brisket and pulled pork. Those two were so bad I wasn’t even sure we had been given the right food to start with. Brisket was shredded rather than sliced, had no flavour and no smoke. Pulled pork the same, classic restaurant mistake of over shredding almost blendering the pork rather than pulling it apart, felt and tested more like a shredded roast pork joint or chops rather than properly cooked pulled pork. No flavour, no crust, no smoke, no moistness, just dry and stringy. Sauces were good but couldn’t save the rest of it. Was really disappointed as I had seen on socials that they do have a proper smoker so was expecting something good. Had been looking forward to the visit and gone out of my way to go there. What with being called Smoke on the water, having a smoker and selling smokehouse food I was expecting something much more, crazy that the whole point of the place is the aspect that was by far the worst. Place really does have potential if they could just nail the meat. Would be a nice place to watch the sunset with a cocktail or two with a great view out the front. Oh and just get some normal Coke in. Nobody likes the silly posh stuff, tastes like...

I don’t often leave a review but felt I had to after visiting this restaurant yesterday. It has the potential to be really good but sadly we were left very disappointed.

The view of Swanage from the big windows was definitely the highlight. However inside it was very warm and smokey. But our main issue was the food! It just didn’t taste of anything! I thought it was just me but my husband said exactly the same.

The salt and pepper squid starter could have been anything deep fried, and definitely didn’t have any salt or pepper on it! The halloumi bites were just slices of partially cooked halloumi. We then shared a pit meat tray. Expecting it to be good we went for the 3 meats/3 sides platter to share. The brisket was the best bit but tasted too smokey to eat much of it. The pulled pork genuinely didn’t taste of anything at all, and the lamb kofta (on special) had a very fatty texture and wasn’t nice to eat. On to the sides, the smokey beans had a strong taste of vinegar, and the mac and cheese was very bland and also didn’t taste of much. The chips however were good! The garlic sauce was also lacking any garlic or general flavour and might as well have been a dip of yoghurt!

Overall definitely not worth the £60 we spent. We left over half the meat tray (which wasn’t questioned by the waitress), and left smelling very smokey and wishing we had gone somewhere else. My advice would be don’t waste your money until they can guarantee their food has some flavour and lives up to quality you would expect for the prices charged. Sorry to not be posting a more...