The Vine Inn — Restaurant in Vale of White Horse

Meat Gravy Served With Vegetarian Dishes!

We had avoided this pub for a while as it was not great for veggie options but friends advised it had improved so we booked a family party on Sunday. There were two vegetarians in our party who looked forward to sampling the new Sunday veggie dish.. Everything started off well as we were promptly served drinks at our table. However we DID notice the pub was freezing with no radiators on and no fire on. We asked if the heating could be put on, but it was not and there was a big draught every time someone came in through the rear door. Nearly everyone in the pub kept their coats and scarves on! The meals arrived and looked nice. However the gravy seemed unusually dark and thick for the vegetarian dishes even though it had been advertised on the menu as 'vegetarian gravy'. One of the vegetarians asked a meat eating brother to try her gravy for her. He was appalled to realise it was meat gravy. He tested the other one and that was meat gravy too! We complained and the pub did not even apologise, as if they thought it was perfectly ok to serve meat gravy with a vegetarian dish! Eventually they offered mint or other sauces as an alternative. Luckily the gravy was in gravy boats and had not been poured onto the vegetarian meals, which was odd in itself as the meat dishes came with gravy poured on, suggesting the staff knew it wasn't veggie gravy and they might get a complaint! However if they had run out of vegetarian gravy our party would far rather they had said so and offered alternative sauces in the first place, rather than attempting to trick our family members with meat gravy! Finally our party were overcharged for the drinks, though this was sorted out at the end. The Vine could and should be a great pub, (and has more than a few pretensions in that direction), but it seems to be run by untrained buffoons with little consideration for the warmth and service of their customers, though the chef is not a bad cook. We will certainly not be returning again and were far too cold to stay for dessert! In fact if we had not been with my mother-in-law who has cancer, we would have walked out, but we did not want to ruin...

So disappointed, A member of our family booked for a get together, the pub is a lovely building that was what the two stars is for After looking at the website and reviews , it felt like an ok place to meet .The menu on the website was very different to the offer firstly . All seven of us ordered fish and chips (it looked great on review photos ) what we got was very different .we all got two very small pieces of fish, my thought was they only had 4 fillets and rather than ask three of us to change they thought cutting them into three would give us two bits each , they were thin and very small . The chips , were very low standard frozen chips that had been dunked in the fryer for too long with peas and tartare sauce for £17.50 I expect more. Some of the guests were still hungry and mistakenly ordered puddings at £7.50 . The cherry bread and pudding tasted synthetic and bland and was over microwaved .sticky toffee pudding was disappointing too . I can’t understand why the reviews from the summer were good. Maybe they have lost the chef ? Wouldn’t...

We really wanted to like our meal but it was pretty poor. The kids food from the kids menu was good - the fish & chips were delicious and the burger was good. The adult starters were awful. The pâté from the Christmas menu tasted like it had been defrosted (grainy & separated), served bizarrely with iceberg lettuce and cherry tomatoes. The Brie wedges were also pretty poor. The steak & kidney pie was pretty good & the Mushroom, Cranberry, Brie & Nut Wellington was good, as were the roast potatoes but the vegetables were awful - overcooked Brussel sprouts (almost brown), and over boiled carrots, peas & cabbage. All this for just over £70, far too expensive for reheated, overcooked food.

The female waitress was friendly, which was fortunate because the welcome (or even a smile) from the landlord was non existent, despite the empty pub.

What a shame, a lovely location, great garden & building, let down by unfriendly landlord...