The Lamb Inn — Restaurant in West Oxfordshire

We booked a room for two nights as an early Valentine’s Day celebration. On arrival there was no welcome whatsoever, just a very lukewarm “are you staying with us?”. We were assigned room number 6. The room was small, but nicely decorated and the bathroom was also done to a nice standard. However the entire experience was let down by the decision to have the kitchen’s extractor fan right next to the bedroom’s window. Whenever the kitchen was operating our room would be filled with all the smells you would expect from a commercial kitchen…. We had garlic, fish, steak and general deep fried goods. At 12pm Friday night the room smelled like a fishmongers. Breakfast was included and in the pub’s bar. It was a really nice space send was perfect as a breakfast setting. However, the music playing was reminiscent of a funeral. One cooked breakfast came not as ordered and the other was potentially the driest bacon sandwich I’ve ever eaten, which is a shame because the bacon itself was really nice. We booked a table for dinner for the Saturday night a few weeks in advance. On entering the bar at our allotted time, we were advised that they had already given our table away. We were then shown into the bar area once more, to a table set for four people. The bar had your usual pub drinkers and a dog and was not an appropriate setting for a nice meal. There was a separate restaurant area but we never got to see it. At our table, we could immediately see an issue as they had squeezed tables in together so that it was genuinely impossible for people to get to the other side of the table to sit down without moving the tables ourselves; problematic when people are eating their meals and new costumers arrive or leave continuously. The menu was limited, but that is not necessary a bad thing but the lack of available beers or ciders seemed like a strange decision. You have to go through a process of questioning your waiter (who then turns to the bar for answers) as to what beers are available; why not just have them on the menu? We both had the cheeseburgers which were quite tasty and judged against the rest of the menu were good value. Upon finishing our meal we moved the tables to the left to enable us to get out only to be questioned by a waitress as to why we had done that. It was quite incredible that they did not seem to realise that the table arrangements were completely disfunctional. Inevitably the next costumers for the table we had blocked off wanted to sit down and therefore we had to get out, move the tables again, and stand in the middle of the bar whilst we waited for the card machine to appear. It never did, so we had to go and find it ourselves. Upon payment we were asked if we wanted to add a gratuity, a question that came across quite rude at that stage. We withdrew to our room to take in all the smells from the kitchen once more. Upon arrival for breakfast the following morning we were asked if we would like tea or coffee and, as the morning before, we requested two cappuccinos. The direct response from the member of staff was “it’s gonna cost you extra”. A slight standoff ensued whereby we explained that we had cappuccinos the previous morning and were not advised then that there would be a further cost. His response was “well, they should’ve charged you, but I wasn’t here”. I don't mind paying extra for something but you have to communicate what is included and what is not and be consistent. Again, you have breakfast menus, just put in there that tea and filter coffee are included only, problem solved. In summary there were two big issues that we experienced: One, the room should not be let out with the existing kitchen’s extractor arrangement. It doesn’t matter how pretty the room is, it is not enough to forgive the smell of smoked fish in the evening. Two, all staff conducted themselves as if it was their first day on the job with no prior training or experience. There were no visible senior members of staff which creates a unnerving environment. The whole operation lacked organisation, management...

I booked the day before we stayed so we got the room for a fairly discounted rate I think. There were lots of positives about the stay but I think that if I had paid full price I would have been quite disappointed. The room (room 3) was over the pub, which it didn’t tell you when you book (just said a classic double). This meant that it was very noisy, more noisy than you would expect a standard room in a building with average sound proofing- the rugby was on for example and you could hear every word on the tv. Whilst the noise didn’t go on very late, we were looking for a quiet relaxing weekend and it just wasn’t really what we expected. If a note had been made when booking that the noise from the pub would be there I probably just would have tried somewhere else for this specific night. There was also black mould on the ceiling in multiple places. The heating broke, which wasn’t anyone’s fault but it took quite a long time to come on again. To be fair, the manager did give us a complimentary drink but we didn’t want to have a drink for a while in case we needed to drive home as with temperatures being 5 degrees outside I didn’t want to stay somewhere without heating! The bathroom was a good size with nice fittings and very clean, but the drain was blocked to the point that my boyfriend had to turn his shower off halfway through because the shower tray was about to overflow. The room was nicely decorated with good quality sheets and toiletries and biscuits which seemed homemade. Food was great at dinner - really couldn’t fault it. Breakfast in comparison was a bit lacklustre, for a foodie type destination I expected a little more. The yoghurt and croissants had run out with no more delivery that morning, and things like the peanut butter being Jif instead of a proper nut butter, or having juice that wasn’t juice from a carton from concentrate. Service- the general manager was great and a really nice guy. Everyone else working there seemed slightly confused a lot of the time. For example when I first walked in and said hello we’re staying the night, having never been there before, the girl at the bar just said ‘okay’ instead of welcome and let me show you your room or get you checked in (I had to ask please can we check in). Similarly at dinner I asked for pudding to be with custard instead of ice cream which the waitress said was fine (wouldn’t have minded if it wasn’t!) and then proceeded to bring it out with ice cream not custard. For the price we paid it wasn’t the end of the world, but felt like had I been paying full price I would have been a bit...

We had a terrible meal here and took the liberty of emailing management to express our concerns but I had zero acknowledgement, therefore with regret I am leaving this review. ||Good morning,||I feel compelled to write to you regarding our meal and service we received in the Lamb yesterday 09/01/2025 (as I feel it important to give feedback , both positive and negative)||To start with I noticed our table was given to other diners because they complained about the cold draft coming into the bar area from the corridor. No big issue as we expressed our wish to be moved also which was facilitated by the staff.||We first received some bread which consisted of 3 rock hard pieces of crust, no salt, no olive oil which is the norm here previously. ||I ordered the buttermilk chicken as a starter, it arrived 40 mins later and it was rather burnt, bitter and dry. I noticed the both of the front of house staff were rushed off their feet so didn’t complain at the time.|We had to constantly flag down the staff for everything and even resort to queuing at the bar for a drink mid meal.|For a main course I ordered Ribeye steak.|It arrived another 40 mins later and the steak was lukewarm and was so bitter from the grill it ruined what taste it had.|The salad garnish was undressed and very very poor quality, mostly consisting of dry purple lettuce stalks. |The chips were a particular low point, gone are the nice salty fries we are used to, replaced by what can only be described as school catering chips. Low quality, tasteless, hard in the middle and uninspiring, no seasoning of any description.|This leads me to the peppercorn sauce, as this was a chargeable extra it can’t fathom any chef allowing a small, half filled jug of grey/ brown, lukewarm, water with a few sedimentary peppercorns sunk to the bottom, again poor quality and tasteless.|After our meal I discreetly went to discuss this with a member of staff. On a positive note the two front of house members of staff were amazing. They clearly needed more help as they really struggled to keep up.|Being local we eat at The Lamb quite often but unless there is a dramatic change I cannot consider returning.|I’m not sure if the pub has changed hands or chef but the quality of ingredients seemed to be incredibly poor. The bill for 2 adults and a child was £212, extortionate considering my experience.|I hope this email is received in the nature I am sending it. I am not the sort of person to leave bad reviews, I prefer to give frank and honest...