Harper’s Steakhouse & Bar Swanwick Marina — Restaurant in Fareham

This "steakhouse" had been on our must visit list for quite a while. We finally made it tonight and left extremely disappointed!

Myself and my partner decided we would visit for an evening meal for my birthday. We booked online for the weekend indulgence menu and were sat down with a normal menu with no option for the 3 course set menu (Seems to have been a blessing in disguise as we were glad to be able to bail before dessert!)

We ordered: calamari, sesame chicken, 2 x 8oz fillet steaks, and one of every steak sauce (red wine Bordelaise, Béarnaise, peppercorn, chimichurri or garlic & parsley butter)

The starters were okay. However, I was very disappointed that the calamari tasted as though it was out of the freezer! There is an amazing fish market called Bradley's not 500m down the road, so I would have expected fresh fish.

The fillet steaks were £36.95 per person, which is a price we would expect to see in a steak house, so we had no issues ordering that.

The steaks came out about 5 minutes after the starters were finished, which felt very rushed.

I like my steak blue, and my partner ordered medium rare. My blue steak was hardly even seared on the top/bottom, and the sides hadn't even seen the griddle. They were completely raw. My partner's was only just about rare. The steak had not been seasoned at all, clearly had not been rested, all of this, along with the cut I would say, is not worth £20 let alone almost £40.

In addition to this, our chips came out wrong, although this was quickly rectified by the staff. Although the Parmesan truffle fries were disappointing, with parmesan just sprinkled to the top of the chips.

The sauces were fresh out of a bookers pot, I've never tasted a chimichurri like this before. It was like minty water. The Béarnaise was almost desserty, and honestly quite grim. All of them were extremely disappointing.

A man we assume is the manger did a meal check halfway through and offered to recook the steaks, but we declined as we just wanted to finish and leave. He was, however, receptive to our feedback and did say he would speak to the kitchen.

We were offred a free dessert or a complementary drink by the server, and we asked that our current drinks were complementary as we didn't want to stay much longer. The bill, including a couple of drinks, each with the reduction, was £115.10

As we all know £100 on a meal out at the moment is a luxury and not something we can do often. We both left, wishing we stayed at home, saved an hour round trip to Harpers, and got a takeaway at 1/4 of the price.

We both agree that Harpers is probably a nice place for a beer and a burger. However, it is definitely not...

I went in with my fiancee and a friend for a pay day / bank holiday treat after a recommendation from a family member and some local knowledge about the steakhouse but didn’t have a good experience.

The creamy mushroom starter was anything but creamy, the sauce was so think it was virtually solid. When we mentioned it to the waitress, she looked horrified and said it shouldn’t be like that and did get it taken off the bill, but it was so bad I’m amazed it was allowed to leave the kitchen in the first place.

The sirloin steak we had was a bit fatty and gristly and not particularly nice, and the rump we had wasn’t tender and was quite tough. Neither steaks had much flavour despite being cooked as requested. The side we had of garlic bread was also chewy and not very pleasant either. The chicken parmigiana was mostly pasta with a small chicken breast. The deserts were better though but nothing outstanding, and there were some unusual options on top of the regular things you’d expect.

The selection of drinks available is pretty extensive, with the list of usual soft drinks, warm drinks, beers, ciders, wines, spirits and cocktails, while also having a nice range of unusual cocktails too. The drinks were the only element we weren’t disappointed with, if we’re being honest.

To round it off, I was emailed a post table reservation feedback survey, but the link sent is permanently broken so I couldn’t send it privately, hence the need for an awkward but honest Google review.

The service from the waitress Anya, was good though, food and drink was served up in a reasonable time and never felt like we were left waiting. A service charge is included on the bill but can be removed if requested and this is mentioned when the bill comes over.

For the money paid, about £60 a head with starters, mains, deserts and 2 drinks, I don’t think I’ll be going back to harpers after...

Lovely building and staff, sadly real poor food. Came highly recommended, but was highly disappointing.

Ordered 2 starters, Chicken and Garlic flat bread, Chicken was good and tasty, although warm at best, not great being chicken, flat bread was poor, soft, almost raw in texture.

Mains ordered were 2 filet steaks, and a Rib eye. 1 of the filets was described as 'ok' the other was inedible, tuff, cold and undercooked. Rib eye was like leather and cooked to within in an inch of its life, (ordered medium) the onion rings were so well cooked they wouldn't have looked out of place in a crematorium. Staff were very good about it, offered to further cook the filet, (sadly the moment was lost, and it would have come back the person having to eat alone), and I was so hungry I ate the rib eye because I could be doing with the faff of trying to negotiate a further steak.

I even asked for just steak and chips on the plate, and the waitress acknowledge me, to find a mushroom and vine tomatoes on the plate. Why can't people follow the basic of instructions / requests... ? and I'm allergic to tomatoes... that wasn't the best start.

All in all disappointing, especially for the cost, there are good reviews on here, so some might say we where unlucky, there was hardly anyone in the restaurant so they weren't busy, I think someone in the kitchen just wasn't paying attention, and as a result spoilt what was expected to be a lovely night.

We travelled a fair distance to eat here. a shame, esp when there is a steak house less than a mile away that offered much better quality food for a similar price, and their attention to detail from experience is much higher.

They did remove 1 of the filets and the onion rings from the bill, however a very expensive meal for what was very much below a...