The Fighting Cocks Pub — Restaurant in New Forest

Recommended by friends who probably haven't visited the pub for a few years. We were looking forward to our visit but we won't be going back... Disabled access is claimed. You need to bump a wheelchair over quite high thresholds to get in, and go in backwards. There are then too many tables and chairs to turn the wheelchair around easily, without the occupant of said chair feeling embarrassed by the whole performance.

You then need to overcome the smell of donkeys and smokers in the pub gardens.

Some staff were OK, some were not.

I rarely get a holiday and it makes my life so much easier if I can stay in touch with my business and use the guest wifi. This wouldn't work and the manager told me it hadn't been working properly that day. Of course the staff wifi was working perfectly judging by the staff on their mobile phones.

The food, starters, Pakoras were far too over spiced with a hot chili. Prawn dishes were served with bread that had clearly been out for some time as it was quite hard. Chips and Fries were excellent. Mains, Hunters Chicken, tough Chicken, fatty bacon and just too much of it all really. This was refunded along with one starter. Chicken Tikka Masala, a ball of rice, which I hate to see in the first place, couldn't be forked into grains of rice and I was left with lumps of rice, a lot of grey chicken, oily overall, too. Not a pleasant taste either. It's what I would expect of a £3 Iceland ready meal. Very disappointing indeed.

Deserts. Excellent Sorbet. Bread and Butter pudding was more of a slice of pudding served with an inadequate amount of the custard I chose over cream or icecream. You wouldn't have guessed it was Bread and Butter pudding...

As an aside, we found the icecream in this area of the country to be of poor quality, very watery and lacking in the cream of icecream.

I would say they are serving far to many different dishes and need to reduce the specials and/or menu to an amount that they can prepare without issue. Let me just say that the food arrived too quickly for the number of dinners.

Pizzas were off. The most popular icecreams were off.

We were left hugely disappointed, minus a substantial...

Please please go somewhere else, this pub is only busy because of the location!

For starters the pub is dirty, flies flying around you while you eat your cold roast dinner. When we complained about our cold roast dinner we were sarcastically asked what we wanted (by a man from behind the bar with a checkered shirt and a scar on his eyebrow, I'd advise he gets a job behind a computer rather than front facing, because customer service isn't his strong point). "Do you want it replacing or reheating?" (No apologies ?!) I said, "hot would be nice". The meals then came back boiling hot, after obviously microwaving them. To which they denied after asking them, as my pregnant friend is unable to eat microwaved food. Shortly after she was sick, because of the obviously microwaved food. After trying to eat possibly the worst worst worst roast dinner I've ever eaten, we were left waiting for one of their spineless members of staff to collect our plates, note, nobody asked us how our meal was after reheating them. Finally a young man collected our plates and if it wasn't for him I don't think you'd have any business to run, he was polite and listened to our problems and arranged a refund on the roasts, we paid for the rest, as the rest was fine. So I thank that young man, he's an asset to your pub and I hope he finds a better pub to work for, because you don't deserve him.

We overheard the staff talking about their aggressive chef, sounds as if your own staff are scared of your chef. Not ideal. Maybe send him back to Wetherspoons where microwaving food is acceptable. But I don't expect it when I'm paying for a £19 roast and poor attitude from staff with a chip on their shoulders.

Worst ever experience at a pub, just avoid. Unless you want to spend your holiday arguing with staff on why your meal...

Easily the worst pub I have ever been to. The staff here are genuinely terrible and unfriendly. One particular server named Taylor had awful language towards another member of staff behind the bar and I was left feeling very uncomfortable. I felt she was incredibly rude and had a vile tone of voice and complained how she ‘hated working there’ and ‘wished she was at home’. It was a very cold atmosphere.

I was sat at the table with an empty glass from the previous customers and a menu for oneself an hour waiting for somebody to take my order. The 4x families sat by me had table service and I enquired and they rudely told me to go to the bar for food, which they had previously told me it was table service?

It was extremely understaffed and the table layout felt almost like a school dinner hall with how close the tables were. I was jostled several times by the customers next to me as they tried to get past and it was rather annoying. Definitely needs a new table design. There’s also no television which I assumed there would be to watch the football, instead I heard rather unpleasant comments made from others.

As well as this, a man next to me ordered a drink and there was a dead moth in it, i dread to think what the cleanliness of the kitchen was like if they can’t even be bothered to wash their cups regularly!

Do NOT go to this pub if you want to maintain your dignity, you will leave...