The White Lion — Restaurant in Hart

Our trip to the White Lion was a comedy of errors, and I felt really sorry for our waitress.

I had booked a table for 6 in the morning, and was given the option of the normal or festive menu... I choose the festive and paid a £30 deposit.

We arrived and were shown to our table.... the only one without crackers.... which we had to try to manage with our youngest son who is autistic. We asked for crackers, and they were provided when requested tbf.

We ordered from the festive menu, only to be told that out of the 8 options for main courses, only 3 items were available..... and one of the unavailable dishes was a turkey dinner because "Well, there is a shortage of turkey" (as the manager told us).

So, we ordered from the normal menu.

By now, I have 3 out of the 6 people grumpy as they wanted a roast dinner......

When the mains arrived, the poor waitress was already feeling stressed and was very apologetic (none of this was her fault), and she'd misclicked on her tablet and ordered the wrong pizza for the one person who can't handle change... they offered to box up the wrong pizza for us to take home, and cooked another pizza for our son, but he had to wait 10 minutes to get it while we ate dinners.

2 hours after arriving at the half-filled restaurant, and only having a main course and no starter, our dessert options were taken. We had hoped to be gone within 2 hours due to other plans, which had to be cancelled. The desserts took 30 mins to arrive so we asked for the bill at the same time.

They offered us 10% off the bill amount, which was fair.... but they hadn't deducted the £30 deposit I'd paid.... so this took 20 minutes to sort out.... lucky we requested our bill as the desserts came out or we'd have been there even later.

So, an eventful night, and 3 hours after arriving, we managed to escape.

Tbh, wish I'd booked up the Toby Carvery in...

Food and service disappointing and expensive. The White Lion has sadly become a townie pub. :(

As frequent customers, we always enjoyed the previously excellent service and food here, but recently the food has been very poor and service disappointing to match. After wading through the mass of tanked up townies to get to the restaurant, we found:

Wait for food was long, when the food arrived the starters were cold. The mains took forever to arrive and when they did, it was soon clear they had been under the heat lights for a long time and were also largely cold. The rice on the Katsu bowls was crispy on the outside and you literally had to cut yourself a slice.

The “medium rare” ribeye steak arrived, and rather impressively was well done and cold at the same time, and completely dried out. The accompanying rocket was actually warmer than the steak. The chips were piping hot though, but greasy. (Actually feeling sick now reciting this).

The pizza we also ordered was hot and very good.

Service was slow, and we weren’t asked once if everything was ok. Unfortunately it appears the new management want to compete with the local townie pubs to attract the most amount of tanked up townies and no longer care about the restaurant side. We decided not to order a desert after trying and failing to attract a waitress’ attention for 20 minutes after finishing the mains.

After eventually managing to get the bill (£147 for 4 people ordering a starter and main each with 2 drinks) we were asked to write a review (again, without ever asking how the food or service was), so here we are.

Disappointing and would sadly no longer recommend. (Unless you just want to...

We visited on Saturday 27th November 2021, it was a Very Busy bitter Freezing eve due to the local Christmas 🎄 Fair and Storm Arwen. Myself and a dear friend Googled Cozy Fireplace Local Pubs, the White Lion came up. We phoned on a wim at 8pm and requested an almost immediate dinner reservation, the pub accomodated us however they did state it was Very busy. We arrived at 8.15pm, indeed it was busy, yet we were greeted in a welcoming manner and offered a choice of tables, we sat by one of the lovely warming fires 🔥. We were shortly greeted by a member of the front of house, very polite young man, asked if we were okay and did we wish to order drinks, we did. He also stated the food wait may take a while due to it being so busy, we were obviously aware of this, mainly due to the near vicinity Christmas Market / Fair outside. Drinks arrived promptly and were nice. We ordered a starter to share. This did not take long at all and was yum. The ambience and environment was warm and cozy and considering it was busy felt festive and welcoming. Approx 20-30 mins from ordering the mains arrived, Pork belly & Beef bourguignon, both were well presented and hot. We were asked would we like any condiments, however this is the only criticism of the eve the two items we requested were not available. However, the Service was professional, courteous and very accommodating. The food, especially for a V Busy Sat night was Well presented, Tasty and hot, Well Done Chefs. The evening was Very Pleasant, we stayed for a couple of hours and the environment was what we had hoped for, Cozy and Accommodating, Well Done Team, White Lion Yately, we will return 👍...