Old Forge Otterbourne — Restaurant in Winchester

BIG and very positive update...5 years on and we had lunch at the Old Forge a couple of weeks ago. Now it's living up to its full potential. Food, service and atmosphere all excellent during Sunday lunch, a time when most pubs will be stretched to breaking, but the Forge excelled!! I'm really pleased to have such an excellent option so close to home and one I will visit again and again!!

5Yrs ago:

There’s a beautiful trail that comes out at the old forge. We like to walk our dog on that trail and we’ve stopped 4 times now to have lunch there. I give them 1 star for allowing dogs inside or out. That’s where the good stuff ends. The service is awful, 3 times we’ve ordered salmon for the salad and 3 times we’ve been informed 10 minutes later that they don’t have any salmon. There have been different servers on the till but they have been consistently rude. This time the main course order was taken incorrectly resulting in one salad not coming. The dessert order was the cherry on the cake so to speak. They offer a dessert of coffee with a mini dessert (nice idea), however the coffee I served at time of order and then you wait to see when the dessert will arrive. It was explained that it is our fault that they have only 2 chefs and they don’t know when the dessert will come out...and that they don’t serve the coffee with the dessert because “they might forget to serve the coffee once the dessert is ready”. It’s a real shame because the setting is beautiful and the food we got was good (although expensive). The Otter is close by in the same village, great food, great service and same dog friendly setup. We’ll be going there...

I don't like leaving bad reviews, usually I just decide not to go back somewhere I have had a bad/ disappointing experience but I still feel annoyed after leaving hours ago. I came in with my son today and chose from the sandwich menu as it was supposed to be a quick lunch and I didn't want to spend lots. We ordered two sourdough crab and prawn thermidor "sandwiches" ( well it was in the sandwich section), two pints of pepsi and a Mac n cheese side. To say I was disappointed in what turned up would be an understatement. One flappy piece of bread that was more like a slice of mother's pride covered in sauce with a few prawns and if you looked really hard you could find some tiny flakes of what I think was supposed to be crab. I can handle spending £13 odd pounds on a decent sandwich made with lovely bread but this offering was so far away from what I had imagined it was unbelievable. My bill came to just over £40 which was also due to the outrageously expensive tapped pepsi ( £4.15 each). I am not a rich person so when I go out and it's rubbish it hurts a bit more. I am so fed up with spending money and getting food that is nowhere near as good as I could make myself. I think if you are going to charge that much money for a sandwich then at least use two bits of decent bread and more of the ingredients advertised. The staff were nice enough but I won't come back again, which after this review you will probably be...

Disappointing service experience from beginning to end.

It was a warm Sunday afternoon and the young waiting staff were clearly busy but nonetheless we waited over 20 minutes for drinks, and a further 15 minutes for water after having to remind them. One of the drinks was also incorrect.

Food options are extensive and good quality however multiple options were unavailable. Frustratingly, on 2 occasions the waitress returned and only told us this after we had ordered so members of our party were put on the spot to quickly order something else.

It was a warm afternoon and the majority of cold dessert options and most attractive vegan dessert options (the main reason we chose this restaurant) were also unavailable. The vegan sorbet which was available arrived with an unexpected cookie on it. We asked the waitress whether this was vegan and she said it must be. After challenging this, the waitress eventually agreed to check with the kitchen to find out that indeed it wasn't vegan. This is particularly worrying.

To round off the experience, we were overcharged on the bill and charged multiple times for dishes that we had only ordered once. The staff did rectify the mistake.

Good food but very...