Dancing Man Brewery — Restaurant in Southampton

Went to this cute little pub/brewery yesterday (Saturday 12th August 2017). Great food, amazing staff and really very lovely historical building.

They were very busy outside (decent weather, woohoo!) and fairly busy inside too. Given how popular this place is locally, I would recommend booking if you intend to I eat. I had not booked, but snuck up stairs to see if I could grab something to eat. They let me know it would be a short wait while the kitchen opened, and they even let me have the final unreserved table (a table of two/four all to myself. I later saw the host turning down a group of four because yours truly had nabbed the final table (sorry guys). So I felt a little guilty, not guilty enough though). In my defence, I had come all the way from Surrey, so there!

The staff in this place are lovely. Very friendly and helpful, well turned out and professional.

The food was beyond anything I would ever expect to eat in a pub setting. I ordered the soup so start and for a main I decided ok Mrs. Ramsbottom (see photo, yum!). Followed by an apple and rhubarb tart with crumble topping and ice-cream.

The soup (butternut squash and something or other?) was great, perfectly balanced between sweet & savoury, the celeriac was a great touch.

My main, what can I say? The lamb was cooked to perfection, the middle pink and with just a hint of crispiness in a corner at the edge. Samphire is the reason I ordered this (instead of the beef, horseradish and something or other pie that I had been after). And the Chef wasn't stingy or shy with the stuff at all. The veg in this (broad beans, peas, samphire, little baby oniony thingies) made we want to die with pleasure. The sauce was utterly perfect, translucent with little spots of fat floating about at the top. It was so good, I kinda want to drive all the way down there from Gatwick again, today.

Desert was also excellent, beautiful little pastry, lovely almost biscuity crumble topping and they ice cream tasted home made.

Great hospitality, great food & drink. Lovely staff, wonderful building. Great for people travelling alone (like me), couples, families and groups. I would highly recommend this place and visiting Southampton just to eat here.

Big thanks to my host (sorry I have forgotten your name) the chefs and all the other staff.

• I loved their food, their ambience and their way of doing things.

And... I'll be back!*

*A. Schwarzenegger voice (yes I know I'm not...

This is an incredibly interesting establishment. Very popular with the trendy set and comes into its own when the weather behaves and the extensive outdoor seating can be utilised.

History is wrote deep in this building. Southampton's only Grade I listed building. Once a Wool House, it was originally built by Cistercian Monks following the 1338 French raid on Southampton. It is the only surviving free standing medieval warehouse in the city.

During the Napoleonic Wars it was used to house French prisoners, some of their names are carved into the roof beams. The 20th century saw it used by boat builders and haulage contractors among others before becoming The Maritime Museum from 1966 to 2011. Now, as a brew pub, on Friday one keg beer may be passed through a Hop Randall (a container is fitted in line, between the keg and the glass) and may be used to add extra Hop or fruit flavours.

There are not many establishments that do this.

It's a stunning building with a newly reinstated slate floor (much better for brewing than its former parquet, apparently)

Inside the bric-a-brac and sundry objects, many of which deserve more than a passing glance, would keep even a numpty entertained.

But, visual fascination aside, the beers, many of which are brewed a few feet from the bar, are a real ale buffs sweet shop. From session beers to 'OMG! take the car keys of me' can be had and even those with a discerning palette for ale, can't fail to be impressed.

Food also has a distinctive and eclectic urbanity - I judged by observation and discussion with the recipients. All who were questioned waxed effusive compliments.

This reviewer was an out of town visitor, here for the boat show (SIBS) and came across this business perchance and very did he did so.

"But" dear reader, I hear you say, "Why only four stars?"........don't ask me about the loo. Just DON'T ask me...

I was unfortunate to attend the Dancing Man Brewery this evening. We arrived after making a booking a week ago where we had looked at the menus online seeing a good selection of burgers, pies and other meals. On arrival we were handed menus that had an extremely reduced menu that had apparently been put in place that same day. We were not warned when making the booking that this would be the case and were very dissatisfied with the choices on offer. We had booked this in advance for the special occasion of my brothers 30th who had specifically requested this restaurant as he was excited to try their well known pies, only to find they were no longer providing these.

The only option on the menu we decided we would order was the burger, however we were told they only had 3 burger buns left and the rest would be served in bagels. If you are going to reduce a menu then it would make sense to at least order enough ingredients to provide these meals. However, this was not the case.

It also stated on the menu that pies were still available but when asked about this we were told they were not. Very confusing.

In addition to this the serving staff seemed dismissive and sarcastic when we raised our dissatisfaction and made little in way of apologies for the sudden change of menu or the fact that this was no communicated to us earlier and that the menu on the website remained in full as it had been previously, yet none of this was now available.

Thoroughly disappointed and won’t be...