Steff's Kitchen — Restaurant in New Forest

EDIT TO THE BELOW REVIEW We went to Steffs kitchen again on Wednesday last, and what a shocking difference. They were busy as usual, but we were completely ignored at first, and the empty table still had the previous occupants cups and plates. After 5-10 mins, my mum went to move just the first cup to a much larger empty table, out of our way, only to be scolded like a schoolchild by the blonde older waitress, as she had just cleaned that table. Yes she had, as she walked past our dirty table several times in doing so. I tried really hard to be nice to her regardless of this, it's not the normal attitude in there. When I did indicate that we were ready to order, we were told in a very cross mumbled way that she wouldn't take our orders yet as she had to take them in the order of arrival. We felt so cross as we had actually been there before at least 4 other tables, we watched them arrive for goodness sake! With hindsight, I don't know why we kept quiet, but we didn't feel like a scene or burning our bridges. They were just the tables we could see from around the corner, there may have been more arrived later and served before us out of our line of sight. Finally, this still abrupt lady came for our orders, my continued smile met with ice. I ordered 2 teas and our meals, to which she said there was a long wait time. No wonder really, we had been bumped right down that list already. She went away to the kitchen and came back saying it was now a 40 mins wait. Our teas had arrived so we paid for them and said we would just drink them and go elsewhere for lunch. We honestly felt like errant schoolchildren and were very poorly treated. We won't be back, it was the worst treatment. She should have said something like "I have to take orders in sequence of arrival, unless I have it wrong?" To allow us to say, yes you have this time, we arrived while those tables were empty and actually watched them arrive to the whole establishment after us. We don't expect to be told off and treated like interlopers. Very disappointed and luckily we found a lovely pub just up the road with outstanding service and far nicer.

old review: Always great meals here and absolutely brilliant service always. They have never been a let down and we have always had lovely food here. No reservations, just find a table inside and the ladies will find you and take your order. It's all so efficient that you won't...

Been calling in this cafe for years every few months. Sadly this time was the last. Ordered a coffee, caramel iced latte, juice, cake and a biscoff cookie. The coffee was nice, that’s the positives. The cake was average and the ice coffee has separate milk floating on top of the ice cubes and drink, I approached the counter and asked for a replacement and I was told “that normal”… but they’d make a replacement. Felt they were very dismissive and it seems belittling customers opinion on an obvious issue was fine. And with no apology. I wasn’t about to inform them that after reaching my mid 40’s, and half that time spent in kitchens, and that was separated milk all day every day! Anyway, we waited and watched the lady who was more occupied in the till for some reason, then after a frustrating 4-5 mins as other at the table drank their drinks she decided to start the drink. I noted she ditched the current milk carton for a new one and the drink was made with no separation, odd that! Sadly it tasted like crap tho, the caramel was barely present in the drink. Then the lotus biscoff cookie was tried and was obviously a plain flapjack style cookie with no absolutely flavouring. It was dry, and had no resemblance to a biscoff flavour. I called a different member of staff and informed them, but I was told “that’s what they were advertised as”, again no apologies. What’s happened to customer service??? I sincerely hope this is a one off. But as a local customer, I can’t see us returning. I would normally let this go, but I couldn’t after I tried twice to address the two small issues in the cafe, and was met with two blunt responses and paid over £20 for the pleasure. I find this happens more and more where you pay on ordering, there’s a lot to be said for paying after the...

We visited this cafe after a stroll along the fields of the New Forest for some tea...but left in utter disgust.

Greeted by an older women who didn't know how to smile, we were seated at the smallest of tables (our party was 6+) even though we could clearly see that there was a larger table available, we were denied it.

We asked for some very simple and straight forward items, cream teas...but our waitress returned and said they had "run out of scones", yet literally about 30 seconds later, another waitress appears at our table and says "did you order these scones...?"

As an alternative, we asked for savoury teas amongst other items and were asked to pay upfront. After the waitress had taken our payment another waitress came over to tell this waitress that they were also unavailable. At this point we gave up and asked for a refund and a tea to takeaway, the waitress went off for some reason and said that my mother's tea would be complimentary and a full refund would be issued (as if we should be grateful for free boiled water and a tea bag)

The "weird" unavailability of items and being made to sit on the smallest table...perhaps this was something to do with being 'a person of colour' or of an 'ethnic' background...? We'd never met such an awkwardly, closed minded, uncultured establishment before...!

Advice...? Stay well away, at the least if you're ethnic or the like...

Closest racism at its finest.

P.S. The toilets are unisex and they had no soap/liquid or even sanitiser...which says alot about the food and conditions that they are prepared...