The Railway Hotel — Restaurant in New Forest

Stunning hotel/pub restored to its former glory - in exquisite detail. Celebrating the golden age of railways it's an elegant building with a large courtyard at the rear with outdoor seating for fine weather on the 'platform' overlooking a brick representation of a railway turntable and the most striking feature of all - a Pullman carriage apparently entering or leaving a 'tunnel'. In fact what you see is the Observation Car section of the restaurant 'carriage', the latter complete with train-style seating (though slightly more comfortable!), complete with different views from each table of places of interest around the world (think Venice, Rome, Istanbul...). The food is exceptionally good, maybe a touch on the expensive side, but beautifully cooked, presented and clearly made with love, using high quality local ingredients. There's a bar (the 'waiting room', of course) with a small selection of local beer & cider and an excellent wine list. Upstairs, and beyond the courtyard are some incredible hotel rooms, named and themed after some famous trains: The Flying Scotsman, The Golden Arrow, the famous Orient Express (in all its opulent glory), and The Bournemouth Belle. If you want a comfortable room with a 'sea view', your own beach hut wardrobe and the most spectacular bespoke carpet with sand and sea faithfully reproduced for the full seaside effect, this is the room for you. All rooms have en-suites and everything is finished to an incredibly high standard with masses of attention to detail and some beautiful railway-themed artwork. For anyone remotely interested in trains and the railway, this is a real destination pub and definitely worth a visit to re-live the experience of a bygone era. The only thing missing is the smell of sooty smoke! Update 13/7/23 - like almost every establishment in the hospitality sector, the Railway Hotel is struggling to recruit enough staff across all aspects of the business especially kitchen & front of house. Because of this, opening hours have been reduced temporarily in order not to impact the quality of service and to reflect the number of available Staff. Always check by ringing ahead whether food is available to avoid...

Living in Fordingbridge we had avoided this place for a couple of years as when it first opened as a hotel we found it too pretentious for its own good. Rating itself much higher than it should for its food and ambience, when it really wasn’t up to scratch in either point.|But recently we started seeing reviews that it had been taken over and much improved, so we decided to give it another try. At first I was not impressed, large family group with noisy children, staff rushed so we couldn’t get service at the bar, so we decided to walk into the restaurant area as we had booked. Again at first I was not thinking things seemed to have improved. The girl again was rushing and showed us to a tiny table even though booths were available as the restaurant was quiet.|But then she returned. She took our drinks order and was helpful in suggesting a wine we might like.|The food came and was delicious. Steaks cooked very much to our different tastes and nothing was too much trouble. The chef even asked her to come back to make sure our steaks were how we each liked them. They were and it was nice to go to a place where they listen. Always have trouble ordering steaks in the UK but here if you like it blue, you get it blue and if you like it cremated, you’ll get it cremated!|Dessert was also lovely and I can not fault the food at all. The waitress turned out to be really sweet and helpful and I chastised myself for making snap judgements when i first walked in.|Since then we have been back already. This time just for a quick drink after going on a long dog walk. They were so welcoming to us and our dog and again nothing was too much trouble. We sat near the fire and they made sure we were comfortable and everything was okay even though we were just having drinks.|My new favourite place,...

Came across this hotel by chance in July and decided to take my elderly parents as my dad likes trains and we had used the Pullman room and I knew it would suit my 85 yr old parents perfectly . Such a unique place nice nice and small with the Pullman room being ideal for accessibility with lovely walk in shower, sofa to sit and ability to have car right outside the door . This time we stayed in the Bournemouth bell which has been tastefully themed. Beach hut wardrobe and sand patterned carpet - luxury bath products provided . We had a summer special bed breakfast and evening meal. The food is of good quality , hot and nicely presented in the carriages of the restaurant - thank you chef. The bar has friendly feel with a good choice of everything. Bournemouth gin was superb. Mia front of house staff has the perfect customer service skills. She met all our needs and went out of her way to accommodate are specific individual wishes. She was cheerful with a great personality. Thank you Mia. You will go far ! Certainly front of house calibre! Very capable. Also a male colleague I think ?david was his name also very efficient pleasant and served us nicely. Very easy to reach all attractions of new forest and nearby towns. We will visit again to experience the other themed rooms. Thank you railway hotel...