The Still & West, Old Portsmouth — Restaurant in Portsmouth

I moved to Barcelona from Portsmouth back in 2019.

Before leaving the city my partner and I would to go to Still & West and every Friday for a beer, some food and to enjoy the atmosphere by the harbour, we even had our leaving meal there back then.

We’re over for a visit for the first time since 2019 and thought it would be nice to go back with some friends and do our old Friday tradition… I have to say it was sadly a disappointment.

The food is pretty overpriced nowadays and we used to love the fish and chips, partly for the home made, skin on chips, but they’ve now been replaced with frozen chips. At around £18 for the meal you can be forgiven for expecting the staff to peel some potatoes to make fresh chips… portion size was a bit lacking too.

On top of this the service was pretty bad… not bad in terms of attentiveness, but bad in terms of being made to feel like you were being pushed along and couldn’t enjoy your time because they wanted the table… I’d understand if it was packed but it really wasn’t and they didn’t need the table.

I would like to say one of the guys, a man wearing a blue shirt and dark curtains for his haircut, was lovely and even moved us by the window after a different member of staff quite rudely and abruptly declared to us “you need to book weeks in advance for those” when we had asked a few mins, clearly not as we got moved no problems.

That particular lady, long red hair and glasses, really made us feel like we weren’t very welcome with the constant “are you ready to order yet?”, due to a friends late arrival. The tone she had wasn’t very friendly really. I don’t think she was happy we got moved despite telling us no prior.

Anyways, I the place has lost its appeal and it’s a shame. I was very excited to go there after all this time but it fell flat and I won’t rush back there on...

The Still and West has been a favourite of ours, sadly tonight's meal was far from up to the usual standard. We were shown to table 71 at 7pm and waited, waited somemore, then another couple of minutes before I had to find a staff member to take our drinks order. I should hasten there was the opportunity to use the Fullers QR code but navigating through endless list to find a glass of wine and a soft drink was tedious to say the least. Service was slow and in my opinion poorly executed. Mains were okay and at best average, when on previous visits they had been excellent. Our table was left uncleared for some while and we had to stop a member of staff to try and order a desert. Menus were delivered and again we were left waiting to order. Desert arrived with an apology of 'sorry your ice cream has melted' I believe, an admission that the small bite Sticky Toffee pudding had been left on the servery. To add to that opinion the pudding which one would imagine was originally hot was cold! When paying I was asked if everything was okay with our meal, I replied with 'no, it wasn't' which was ignored as the £60.15 was taken from my Amex. When faced with this level of disinterest by a customer facing server was there any point in looking for answers or to give proper feedback so improvements can be made or better to just watch out if there is a next time... . A wonderful location and eaterie sadly let down by lack lustre service, poor food this time around and insipid attitude...

This is a must go to if you are ever in Portsmouth, our favourite pub in the UK with our favourite views. With fabulous staff and fantastic food you can't really go wrong.

We turned up on Sunday just for a drink and were greeted by the wonderfully warm and charismatic Barry. Now we hadn't booked a table for food and we well advise you do, however we found a little table by the fireplace to enjoy our drinks.

I was served by the very happy ( and tall ) Jack who certainly knew his way around the bar. Now whilst I was being served I could not help but to overhear the customer next to me having a right go at the other guy behind the bar , Luke. From what I saw and heard none of what was said was Lukes fault but he did a brilliant job of remaining calm and de-escallating the situation, so A very well done to you 👏

We in the end decided to stay on for food and Barry very kindly managed to squeeze us in. The food was outstanding , so please pass on our thanks to the chefs which was superbly served by Gracie. The only thing I didn't do was take a pic of it but there are two very empty plates apart from the last piece of pudding which I'm just about to devour!!

Thanks to all of you for a huge team effort as I know due to a water leak you were all put under a lot of pressure.

Five massive and well deserved stars from...