The Black Swan Inn — Restaurant in England

I apologise to anyone who has eaten in this pub since my own experience in December. I should have posted a review earlier but didn’t get round to it. We booked a table for 8 in the Black Swan for Christmas Eve. We pre ordered the food the week before. We arrived promptly at 7.30pm and first impressions gave me reason for concern. No table prepared! The young guy working behind the bar was already sweating profusely and took our drinks order. At 8.45 we had only received 3 starters which were garlic bread, a bowl of olives and a goats cheese salad (not that taxing to prepare and we had pre ordered). I spoke to the manager and asked him to speed things up. When the main courses arrived I was horrified! Most of the food was inedible. It was obvious that the ingredients used were cheap frozen items heated up and thrown on a plate. There were 3 main courses that each had chips with either scampi, fish or a burger but each plate had a different type of chip! There were fat ones, skinny ones and crinkly ones, it was laughable. My particular main was Scampi with chips (I was the one with fat chips) and peas. The scampi was on the cold side of warm and the peas looked as though they had been reheated at least 3 times. The burger looked like a cannon ball and was so over cooked you actually could have used it for that purpose. My wife ordered a steak cooked rare. When it arrived it looked like charcoal and I told the sweaty barman that it should be rare, his answer was “it is”. I took the manager to one side and told him that we would pay for our drinks and half of the food as that was all that was edible. He apologised and agreed that when he returned the food back to the kitchen it didn’t look good, at this point I lost it and told him that maybe he should have checked it when it was coming out! When the bill came they knocked 50% off the entire bill which was great apart from the fact that everyone was still hungry. During a casual conversation with my sister some weeks later she described a terrible experience she and her colleagues had in the Swan for their Christmas meal, it was almost exactly the same as my own.

My biggest concern is that these people will make someone extremely ill or worse.

I have to give at least 1 star to be able to post but that is...

The smile from reception as we walked in was a very encouraging indication to what turned out to be an excellent overnight stay. You can park right outside the 1746 inn to unload luggage and then drive round to the Wharf car park, from where you can walk back to the hotel in 5 minutes down Snuff Street. Devizes was a big snuff town in the 18th century. The stairs up to our room were clearly 18th century with a 90 degree turn and quite narrow step depth. This is NOT a criticism, just a warning that comes with a hotel of this age. ||Our room looked out over the Market Place and a couple of bus stops but there was minimal road noise. The double-bedded room was very clean and tidy with a large wardrobe, a quiet fan, television/wifi and a bathroom (with a shower) a couple of steps up from the floor. Milk and water were in a fridge on the landing just outside the door to the room. We slept very well indeed.||Breakfast was just superb with a wide range of dishes available, not just the usual full English/Continental that is to often the case in the UK. We regretted not eating at the Black Swan in the evening. Service was very friendly and efficient. Given the small size of the hotel they do ask for visitors to book a breakfast time. ||A quick walk took me back to the car park and a drive back to the hotel that does involve a slight detour around the one-way system. ||Overall a very enjoyable and comfortable stay to celebrate my return to Devizes - having moved away in 1964. I was never old enough at the time to venture into the hotel, which is a feature of the Market Place. Note that you get a key to the front door so that if you are out late you can still get back...

We stayed at The Black Swan Inn in preparation for a wedding that we were going to be attending. Online reviews suggested that it was one of the best places to stay in Devizes and it was conveniently located to suit our plans. We've eaten lunch here previously and were very pleased with the food, so decided it was low risk.

The food is excellent and the location is excellent for access to the town. Now, the problem.here.is that the building is thousands of years old, probably. Built in the times of the Romans I imagine. This is not a modern building. And in our sanitised society its difficult for the building to match the beige uniformity of modern hotel and accomodation buildings. But you know what, the owners have done a good job here.

The rooms are quirky, but very functional. Sufficient power sockets in the right place, small home baked shortbread biscuits on the tea tray, plenty of hot water, teeny weeny bottles of fresh milk in a fridge on the landing, and a comfortable bed (although I personally struggled with the mattress protector which I think just retained the heat).

However, the stand out thing about this place is the staff. Morgan was a constant presence for much of our stay and she never missed a beat. Nothing was too much trouble; a very welcoming greeting when we arrived, changes to the breakfast menu to suit personal preferences, sorting a place to store luggage, local information.... she was fantastic. And this willingness to help was continued by other staff as the shift rotated. Everyone did everything that could be reasonably done to make us welcome.

I cannot recommend this place more highly....