Cat & Fiddle Hinton Admiral — Restaurant in New Forest

Attractive refurb and extension to this old thatched Inn but I have never felt more compelled to write a poor review in my life - four of us ate here this evening and it's hard to think of positives - feel so sorry for the young and woefully inexperienced front of house team.

We had pre-booked a table for 7pm and arrived a few minutes early. Our order for drinks and food were taken from our table at the same time. Around a quarter of the starters on the menu were not available.

Our starters arrived before any drinks - we asked for our drinks order; beer and wine followed along with two dirty wine glasses; one with heavy lipstick residue. We had to ask for these to be changed, likewise one of the dirty water glasses. The Merlot was good. Side note, only one of the three real ales was 'on'.

The creamy garlic oven baked mushrooms looked good - but a dark strand of something with a 'bobbly' attachment emerged from it as server passed by - he took the strand to 'show it to the chef' leaving the plated starter on the table. No more of the dish was eaten. Meanwhile the smoked mackerel pate was ok, the honey and truffle baked Camembert was just short of disappointing; a poor quality cheese and plain white toast in place of the listed sourdough bread. The server returned to explain that it was ok, the strand was part of the chefs apron, so don't worry. The server was told we didn't want to eat the Chef's apron so take the plate away - he did and said we would not be charged for it.

All meals listed in the 'Sunday Mains' section are served with "ruffled garlic & thyme roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, thyme roasted carrots, green beans, broccoli, honey roasted parsnips and as much gravy as you like" - despite this three roasts came without Yorkshire puddings or indeed the extra ordered cauliflower cheese. We went to find a server to ask for them - two of three Yorkshire puddings followed and we were told there wasn't any cauliflower cheese so it wasn't put through - we wouldn't be charged extra.

The roast pork is described as 'served with crackling and apple sauce' - certainly neither of which left the kitchen - a fatty morsel of pork was accompanied, as were the roast beef dishes; by what appeared to be very lightly roasted 'tinned' new potatoes.

The carrots and parsnips were well roasted and the gravy was excellent but the green beans and broccoli were just off raw, barely warm.

We felt sorry for the friendly & polite but young, ill-equipped front of house staff who clearly don't have the required level of training, the experience or access to a more senior staff member to support them to satisfy customers to a basic level at this branch of what is a multi-million pound M&B business.

Completely...

We booked a table for dinner with friends on Christmas Eve and were looking forward to seeing the changes made by the new owners and having a good quality meal. Sadly it didn't go well. The table we were given was right beside the kitchen door so we could hear shouting and choice language coming from the kitchen. The waiter came and took our order for starters and mains. Good job he read it back to us because he'd missed off one of the starters. My husband had ordered smoked mackerel pate and the waiter returned to say that they were only doing that on Christmas Day ( even though it was offered on their main menu), so he chose soup instead. When the soup came, it was barely warm and my starter didn't turn up at all. We drew this to the attention of the man who seemed to be in charge who said "what have they done now?!" Obviously not a one off then! But he took the soup away to heat up and brought back with my starter. The main courses were okay except my roast turkey dinner had no stuffing and no pigs in blankets though it should have done. The food was very nice but not outstanding considering the price. In between courses we ordered two drinks.... one came and the other one didn't! Then we ordered dessert... my husband chose 3 different flavoured scoops of ice cream (they only offered 3 flavours anyway) The waiter returned to say they had no vanilla ice cream.What?? No vanilla ice cream... what on earth... a lot of the desserts on the menu included vanilla ice cream. Basic, how could they not have any, especially the day before Xmas.

All in all, we were very disappointed at the food ,the service and the whole experience. The place has been beautifully refurbished but the quality of service let it down big time. I realise that all new establishments have teething problems but they have been open for long enough now that these should have been sorted out. Sadly we won't be going back again, which is a real shame as we live locally and have been going there...

Arrived at the Cat and Fiddle after being recommended by a friend. We had booked our table on line. The really lovely reception hostess at the entrance counter was really friendly, you could tell by her manner and the way we were treated that she loved her job and nothing was too much trouble, a proper people person and a real asset to your company (sorry didn’t catch her name, she had blondish hair I think). We had arrived early so she asked to wait outside and proceeded to bring our ordered drinks to us at our table (outside). She called us at our allotted time and said Katie our waitress would look after us at our table. We we’re called to the salad bar in order and the same reception hostess and she proceeded to give us our salad selection.She made sure we got whatever we wanted gave as much or as little as we wanted from each container. I made a joke with her and asked if she cooked the food and cleaned the floors as she was doing so many other jobs as well as being the arrival hostess. Katie our table waitress was also very nice to us and we ordered our food but as they had been so busy that day they had run out of chicken, we made a joke about it (about there being no chicken) but even with this problem their was still plenty of choice. I decided to have the 8oz steak (medium cooked), chips and peas, it was beautifully cooked and tasted delicious, it didn’t need to use any condiments to make it taste any better it was so succulent and juicy. My wife had the beef burger and salad and she said it was really tasty! A lovely place with attentive staff and beautiful food! I will recommend you to all my friends that pass your way in the future to look out for your...