Walnut Tree Farm - Dining & Carvery — Restaurant in Test Valley

Update: We went again today, despite not having been for a few years, because we had a miserable last turkey & tinsel Christmas Dinner with my mum, who passed 3 years ago, my partner and his parents, it really put us off, despite our previous good experience, the one bad one really was bad, service, all our meals, entertainment, there was nothing Christmasy about the turkey and tinsel meal that we decided to treat our parents too, which was made even sadder as it was my mums last Christmas with us.

Today however, it was like a completely different place, we went for my husbands birthday, and this time it was really clean, all the staff were absolutely brilliant, the menu catered for all of us, the food was absolutely great, we all thoroughly enjoyed it, not one complaint, we will definitely go back and start recommending it to friends and family again.

We are extremely pleased that my husband chose the Walnut Tree as his birthday dinner choice, today we were all very impressed, and it definitely deserves 5 stars again.

Original: The Walnut Tree Farm is a clean, friendly place.

Excellent food, including a small selection of vegetarian options.

The food portions are large, in fact my partner and my mum order the fish platter and ended up taking quite a lot of theirs home.

I'm vegetarian, there wasn't a huge choice, but I had mushroom pie, the filling was very nice but the pastry wasn't great, so I left it, the chips and mushy peas were very good

We ordered giant eclairs to take away and were completely shocked when they weren't bakery size but easily a foot long, not fresh cream, they are filled with very sweet custard and synthetic cream, too much even for two people.

Wheelchair accessible, don't know what the toilets are like, but I would imagine properly accessible, taking the whole venue into account.

Some of the staff are great, very helpful, very chatty, some not so much, overall good experience, would definitely go back.

Only disappointment was when we were given a receipt with an offer for mothers day, but you had to book online for the offer, unfortunately there were no bookings available throughout the website, neither could we book over the bar, apparently they can only book so many tables, then you have to turn up and take your chances.

When you want to book for 2 wheelchair users, one of whom has dementia and Alzheimer's, and 2 able bodied, but not 100% fit in your party, it is difficult to just turn up and wait for a table, especially when its busy, not all tables are accessible, getting people to move once they're settled and eating is not fair.

The Sat Nav on phone got a bit confused, but we found the Walnut...

Popped in for an unlimited breakfast with my brother and was greeted by a the shift manager (shaq I think his name is). He was a but standoffish but he seemed under pressure so I sort of ignored that first impression. We sat at our table and then approached the buffet bar to start our breakfast. Noone was there to give any instruction and no signage to advise so I reached over to the plates to grab us a couple of plates to which the manager approached and scolded me that "that's not how we do things here!" his justification was that he was understaffed. My response that if there was enough staff we wouldn't have had to help ourselves didn't go down too well by the look on his face. Me and my brother laughed it off and sat down to begin our breakfast. The food had clearly been left under the hot lamp for an excessive time as everything was dried out and tasteless. It was an all you can eat breakfast so we weren't expecting fine dinning but an acceptable standard would have been good. I approached for a second serving as I'm not the kind of guy to skimp out when unlimited food is available and a member of the kitchen team (he had red uniform on so I presume kitchen staff) was filling some takeaway boxes and I asked him if anyone could get one of those to which he said "yes ill grab you one shortly", with that the manager appeared as if from magic and asked "whats up?". I repeated my request for a takeaway box and he asked what for, I resisted the sarcastic response and stated I wished to take away the remainder of my breakfast and he told me "that's not how we do things here". With that I loaded my plate again and sat down and then witnessed the same manager constantly touching food with no gloves on and after every action he was wiping his hands up his backside (on top of his jeans not onto his actual backside skin) and then repeating the process. I saw him use the till multiple times and then revert back to the same process with the food area without washing or sanitising his hands, occasionally he used a tea towel that got slung back into a crevice after each wipe. I joked with my brother about recording it to show the world but I thought that fell into a Karen style attitude so we finished our plates and left to continue our days work. I've never had a great experience at the walnut tree but I still try to have an unbiased opinion with each visit to anywhere but that's 4 out of 4 visits that have been disappointing for me. Looks like the only thing worth going there for is the takeaway cake in a box that never disappoints except for the price increase over time (which is to be expected with inflation...

Took my Mum here for a roast. We were sat next to a very large family with quite a lot of children who were making quite a bit of noise. Completely understand families taking the kiddies out, that's not an issue at all! My Mum's hearing aids were playing up because of the noise. We had already paid, so just thought we'd ask to move as there was free tables. We let the waitress know and explained the situation. They said we were unable to sit in the free tables as they were already booked.

I kindly asked for a refund instead and the manager said 'it's half term, what do you expect coming out to eat?'. Kind of villainising us for wanting a quiet meal. On top of that, they wouldn't refund us our barley touched drinks... I mean my mother hadn't drank any of hers and i'd had a small sip of mine (a coke cost about £4 by the way! Absolutely shocking!).

I need to point out, on our booking we also made sure to tick the 'adults only' area. I know that it's half term, but I don't see why there can't be a small area for people that haven't brought kids along with them. Or at least advertise that you're not doing the 'adults only' area during school holidays.

The staff's attitude topped it off in all honesty. There was no need to be so dismissive and rude, especially since you were dealing with customers that were understanding regarding the children. We weren't acting like Karens at all.. in fact, the staff were!

Won't be returning because of how rude and dismissive the staff were in all honesty (not that they will probably care! I just wanted to point it out if you're looking for a place to go to eat at...