The Crown Inn — Restaurant in New Forest

Not as good as our last visit in 2019. Plenty of outside seating between the pub and the road. Inside was disappointing, very little change from last time, leaving the interior rather devoid of the atmosphere it deserves. As it was an early June evening I cannot comment on the interior lighting. Back then, it was too bright. It was very quiet inside, we were greeted by a friendly young lady and shown to our table. Our drinks order was taken immediately and our food order taken when she brought them. We both had the same starter and mains which consisted firstly of a very small dollop of salmon mash (pate?) with a few salad leaves etc and some teeth shattering croutons. Our main course was chicken Tikka with rice. The Tikka itself was bland, verging on tasteless. A little more whoomph perhaps? (a subjective view of course), but the rice was excellent and cooked to perfection. Drinks prices were a little on the high side, but not excessive. The total bill including drinks came to £72.40 Overall we came away somewhat disappointed. I felt that the pub could have been mademore cosy and don't get me on to the subject of the piped music...

Nice pub with a welcoming atmosphere and seems to have plenty of events on. Under new ownership, and definitely seems to still be finding their feet in regards to the restaurant side. Scope for improvement going forwards, hopefully the new menu launch will help as this brings better selection of meals. Definitely need to look into being clearer on the menu, what is included in the meal, having an allergy book available and simple things like salt and pepper mills rather than sachets will be a great step in the right direction. Was nice to see vegan options on the menu.

Staff were friendly if not overly attentive, similar to an experince eating outside at a pub rather than the inside area. E.g. ordering everything at the bar including drink refills.

Food was nice enough on the whole and I look forward to coming back...

Just had the most disappointing evening meal at the crown. We looked at the web site and saw the menu, booked our table and were really looking forward to a nice meal. What a letdown! The very small menu on offer was nothing like the one on line. The food was dry and unappealing. What a total waste of money that was. Nice enough staff but it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Definitely won’t return there Edit In all fairness I feel I should add to my review. I received a very pleasant reply from the owner explaining that there was a new menu launch happening and inviting us to try another visit as her guests. Unfortunately we were in the area on holiday and never made it back. I’m sure we would have been more impressed with a new menu. The staff and the ambience were absolutely fine. Dog...