The Woodman Inn — Restaurant in Forest of Dean

We've had much better experiences here in the past and sorry to say the recent experience we had here was average. Nothing to actually complain about as actually bad....just nothing about our meal made it nice. We both had a chicken burger, which was breadcrumbed in a coating notable only for its lack of any real seasoning...the bun, lettuce tomato and gerkin were fine other than being covered in deep frying oil from the deep fried chicken...the accompanying salsa had something like either fennel or aniseed in and just tasted slightly odd and the slaw was average, the chips were basically the only thing that past muster. By the way the chicken burger is topped off with a deep fried hash brown, just to add to the oil factor which neither of us actually wanted....what sounded good on the menu turned out to be nothing special. I ate most of my meal because I was hungry and because I couldn't be bothered to argue the issue, my wife left most of hers, it would have been like saying there's nothing really wrong....it's just not very good... Having had excellent meals in the past it seems the chef has definitely changed and what was a great place to eat is no longer in our opinion. The fact we asked for inside when booking and were placed outside in the open doors covered area...and what started as one person sitting in the covered circular large party table next to us, became a preparation site for around 6 people setting up for a 40th birthday including people blowing helium balloons, balloons, sticking of stuff everywhere noise, and general to do, which basically made this particular anniversary meal of ours memorable as a let down and an anticlimax having had much higher expectations. So moral of this tale is...things change....and some things change...

AVOID UNLESS YOU WOULD LIKE FOOD POISONING...

We visited the Woodman Inn in late February during a romantic child free weekend getaway. We had a lovely two course meal with drinks on a Saturday night and got more than we bargained for...

We had food poisoning since the early hours of Sunday morning and the only thing we ate on the Saturday that was the same was the calamari starter that we shared.

We had to check out of our accommodation at 10am the day after eating at the Woodman Inn and we had to travel a 2.5 hour car journey with uncontrollable sickness - this included being sick while driving on the motorway at 70mph which wasn’t a pleasant experience.

When communicating with the Woodman Inn to report and follow up on this incident, they rarely picked up the phone and didn't reply to emails. When they did pick up the phone the telephone manner was very rude and condescending with swearing during the call. They were not apologetic at all. They were trying to tell me that it isn't possible to get food poisoning from frozen calamari which is a lie as if the calamari isn't cooked in the correct manner it can cause food posionin.

The Woodman Inn have offered a free meal at the establishment as a gesture of goodwill, therefore admitting liability. Due to the visit being part of a holiday and not living locally, it is unlikely that we will be visiting the area and surrounding areas in the near future. We kindly requested a refund of the dinner that we paid for which will be the same value of the goodwill gesture of the dinner in the future and they very rudely declined by swearing down the phone at me.

AVOID....

Incredibly disappointing, it went from bad to worse. I honestly feel for FOH staff. It started to go wrong when we wanted to order food to be told only serving Sunday menu. That's fine, however one of our party was gluten and dairy intolerant. With nothing suitable on the Sunday menu, we had to order the mushroom stroganoff that was advertised as plant based, to then be told it had been made with cream. Very worrying, throughout this tooing and frowing from the kitchen, the staff FOH or BOH didn't seem to understand allergies, nor the menu items and what they contained. There alwas also no vegeterian roast availabe but this was subsituted for a nut roast, unfortunately the staff weren't sure what allergies it contained also. Next we were told no sides of cauliflower cheese available for us 30 minutes after our order went in. When the food arrived (an hour and 20 minutes after we seated) it came cold. Roast pork dinners were cold, fatty, sausages were undercooked, potatoes were undercooked along with the green veggies. No red cabbage or stuffing as advertised, the Yorkshire pudding was 1/4 of a shop bout one and the gravy was cold and watery. Kids meals, the chips were covered in salt. The nut roast was sloppy and cold. Incredibly unappealing. We complained and in fairness the waitress removed the food from the bill, we didn't eat 80% of it. Such a shame they didn't have the capability to win us back over nor the manager touch the table and take ownership of the issues. I understand incredible challenges with staffing at present in the hospitality industry, however tailer the menu and bookings to your...