Wild Carrot — Restaurant in Hart

We visited on a Sunday night at the end of May for our wedding anniversary. We turned up for our 7.45pm booking to find the restaurant to be completely overrun with children, and many tables filled with old plates which hadn't be cleared away from a hotel buffet which people kept also milling around for. We were seated near some open doors, which children kept running in and out of, with parents having no decency to try and control their children to let other diners enjoy their experience. In fact I think we may have been the only group in there with no children. As we have two young children at home we did not want to be around this for our special dinner, so we asked if we could move but there was literally nowhere in the restaurant that you could escape the kids.

So at this point we were moved to the bar. We were sat right next to the cash register in a very awkward spot which again we weren't happy with so moved to the corner of the bar on a stained sofa. We were then surrounded by a large family group playing charades loudly but obviously this is not the fault of the restaurant and of course people are allowed to have fun but this was not the type of fine dining experience we had expected when booking this meal.

Drinks very pricey too, £20 for an average fruity cocktail, I've had nicer cocktails in a can from Tesco. There was also some misunderstandings with our waiter who noted down a couple of things in our order wrong and also had little knowledge of what mocktails were.

The food was mediocre at best and incredibly expensive for the portion sizes. Small portions are not out of the ordinary for this kind of dining, but you would at least expect a great taste. The best part of mine was the starter, smoked aubergine. The lamb shoulder tasted extremely salty. The fillet was decent, medium but slightly charred on the outside for my taste but still nice. The desserts were awful. The Caribbean chocolate was extremely basic and the cocoa nibs it came with were literally disgusting and I was happy to get home and brush my teeth to get the taste out of my mouth! The pink grapefruit and white chocolate dessert did not really taste of anything at all.

The bill came to over £250 - we are happy to pay this sort of price for great food and a great experience. Not mediocre food, poor service and bad experience on what should have been a special night. When we wanted to reduce the £35 service charge (we changed this to £15 - still generous for the treatment we had had), and voiced our complaints to the restaurant manager, he seemed to imply that we should have let them know in advance if we wanted a quiet table (we did specify it was an anniversary on the online booking - no mention of this by the restaurant whereas most places give a special touch). I don't see why a customer would have expected to have been sat in the middle of what felt like a children's buffet/play area/Harvester type set up when coming to a 5* hotel restaurant, and be told we should have told them in advance we wanted to be sat somewhere else?

Even after voicing our complaints the restaurant manager didn't take anything off the bill (would have been a nice touch but the cost of the meal was secondary to the rubbish experience), and barely apologised and just said he'd raise what we'd said with the hotel management.

I am not one to ever really leave a review but I would highly discourage anyone wanting to celebrate a special occasion from coming here for their evening meal, unless you like feeling like you're dining in the middle of...

I have mixed feelings of this restaurant. Set at the Four Seasons, the estate was amazing. The weather was nice when we went and the grounds looked beautiful.

The restaurant was a little hard to find, door staff kind of were nice but also stand offish, but strange

We booked a Sunday buffet lunch for 1230, the buffet started at 1230 and we were5 minutes early, the hostess was a bit cold and just told us that the table wasn't ready and we waited at the bar.

1240 and we were still sitting at the bar when the couple that arrived after us were shown their table before us. I had to ask a waitress if our table was ready

Food was good. nice selection, well cooked. Everyone in our group was appreciative of the setting and the buffet.

The waiting staff were nice, friendly, but for some reason wasn't at our table much. I asked several times for our water Tobe topped up. Had to catch their attention for a drinks order etc

Not sure if it was the table we sat on, but the staff seemed to look after every other table apart from ours.

For example, it's a buffet, but plates were left on our table without being cleared pretty much for the whole meal. While the staff cleared tables which have just left

We waited and chased for the bill, and then waited and chased for the card machine

I have visited many Four Season establishments and the service and attentiveness I expect was not apparent

Maybe just an off day, maybe short staffed but overall the grounds were nice but lunch was a bit meh. Definitely...

Lovely surroundings, attentive staff, sadly my food disappointing given the premium prices, but other's dinners somewhat more successful. Party of five, steaks tasty, venison good but pastry in Wellington not well cooked, I somehow managed to get 3 things which had pine nuts in. I love a pine nut, but they were rather ubiquitous.

Burrata to start with flavour overwhelmed by pine nuts and additional £7 for optional two strips of anchovy bewildering and maybe predictably unnecessary. There's a good reason we routinely pair mozzarella with sweet juicy tomatoes and basil. Jus with pork belly over reduced, with raisins and more pine nuts and mustard seeds adding slightly odd flavours. There were so many mustard seeds and sauce so reduced it looked like brown tapioca. Pistachio and lemon ganache dessert very pretty but overly sweet and textures too similar...and more pine nuts in middle. I was hoping for a nice zingy tart lemon layer to counteract the pistachio ganache but it was sadly lacking.

I understand there is a new executive chef and the menu is under development, it was our first visit and we probably wouldn't rush back, at almost £100 a head it just wasn't quite...