Rights of Man — Restaurant in Lewes

We visit the Rights of Man on many occasions to eat and to drink and we have always found a staff to be gracious, good natured and the food to be of high quality.

When the manager came to take our order, I joked with him how disappointed I was that the lamb rump dish was not on and said “you can’t do that”. It was obviously a joke, but the stern reply I received was “we can do what we want”. When he walked away, one of my guests said to me “that’s you been told” and I brushed it off by saying as it’s a bank holiday and he’s had a long hard day, that I quite understand.

Three of us ordered the pork belly, but when it arrived, the fat had not been rendered and we were presented with a plate of gelatinous fat. I scraped it off and called the manager over, explained to him why we were unhappy with the dish and my wife and I sent the dish back and ordered something else. Our guest was too embarrassed to send the dish back and left it mostly uneaten which must have been noticed when the plate was taken away.

When we asked to pay the pork belly dish was being charged for and I said that I thought that the other dishes we ordered should be priced as frankly the pork was inedible. I was informed by the manager that the chef said that there was nothing wrong with the dish and therefore we were to pay the higher cost of the food.

I was humiliated and embarrassed and what for? Is the cost difference between fish and chips and a pulled pork burger really worth making me feel like an idiot? I repeat, the dish was not edible, if the chef and manager eat food like that then I have to question their palate. But this was a case of their ego overtaking their professionalism.

Worse still, the owner/manager could not be bothered and was ‘too busy’ to reply to an email so after four weeks, I thought I’d post this review instead. They don’t care for their customers therefore I will not care to visit this establishment again, I’ll spend my well earned money...

Good beer, bad service, bad food – recommend avoiding and going to one of the many better pubs in Lewes instead. Details of our experience below...

We had high hopes for this pub and booked in advance for a Friday night dinner / session. We were shown to a cosy but uncomfortable booth by the bar on arrival. The table had dirty glasses on it which had to be cleared away while we waited. We then ordered three beers which took over ten minutes to arrive and when they did, we asked the waiter if we could order some starters – to which he responded “I’ve got some stuff do so just ask one of the others instead”.

Once we recovered from the shock, we dutifully did as instructed and ordered the starters (seafood croquettes and calamari) from another member of staff. They arrived promptly – but were greasy and tasted like they’d been microwaved. The beers on the other hand weren’t bad.

The chaos around the bar continued to unfold as more punters arrived. Staff members were inefficiently running around, contradicting each other to customers about availability of tables etc. We cut our losses and went to a different pub round the corner for our main meal instead (see separate review) where the service was made to look effortlessly easy...

We booked for first sitting at 12. Arriving a few minutes early we were gruffly told the pub wasn’t open yet & we should not come in. Stay outside in the wind & rain. Good day to you as well. A frosty welcome was felt, which continued. Despite booking weeks in advance, our table was in the window of the bar. Fine except one chair was at the wrong height to eat, sat on the window seat. Ok but not ideal given other tables in the place. Menu was limited but fine. Fancy roasts, but other choices as well. Main roast quality was actually great. Good sides though small & shared which made it more difficult not to over take. Extra gravy came. Tasty food. Despite booking at 12, the main dessert (1 of only 3 choices) was already sold out by we got to it. We had coffee & dessert at Caffe Nero over the road instead. Hard to see reasoning for messing this up. Prices were steep, but just above going rate for Lewes. The automatic 12% service was a liberty to add on. It was paid by a more polite member of the group who sorted the whole bill, but a great way to put customers off booking back. All in all, great main. But enough wrong around the main food to want to shop...