The Broadway — Restaurant in Winchester

We had our Wedding Reception at Pitcher & Piano and it was the best decision we could have made - we couldn’t have been happier!! I can’t stress enough what a great wedding venue it is, we had exclusive use of the venue and it was perfect.

After our meeting with the team about a week prior to our wedding day I had no doubt that they knew what they were doing, it put us at ease and we knew we could relax and enjoy the day.

The format of our day was: drinks on arrival, then speeches, which were great on the top level overlooking all the guests, then buffet, then cake cutting and then dancing with their house DJ.

Rosie and her team were amazing from start to finish; from the organising of all the details to making sure the venue was clean and ready for all of our guests. They put up ‘private event’ signs on the door and even put out a rope out the front which made it look extra special! The whole team went the extra mile, they were friendly, warm, professional and we loved having a dance with them at the end. From being at our meeting on their days off, to taking it upon themselves to arrange a microphone and amp for the speeches (which we hadn’t even thought of), to speaking to the taxi to give us a little longer on the dancefloor. You never had to prompt, they pre-empted so many of ours and our guests’ needs.

Everyone commented about how great the wedding buffet was, which wasn’t just ‘beige food’, there was a wonderful mix for all kinds of eaters, including peanut-free gluten-free, vegan and veggie and they even labelled it all up so there was absolutely no confusion.

Drinks were flowing smoothly all night, there was never a queue, the prices were reasonable and they were excellent at keeping Prosecco topped up!

We popped out for some photos as the sun set and when we got back the tables had been rearranged and there was a dancefloor with guests having a great time – it was so seamless and nothing was too much for the team.

Our guests also commented on what a great wedding venue it is, a beautiful building linked to the Winchester Guildhall, and inside there are quite a few areas for guests to be and mingle, including the courtyard at the back where we had the ‘photobooth’ and the children enjoyed playing out there during the speeches. There was a real buzz and everyone loved it - we had around 100 guests, and it was perfect. And not too loud for the older guests to sit and chat. Even with the DJ playing. It was also a great venue for having children at your wedding as it was relaxed and less formal, allowing the children to play, wander around safely keeping them contained but free to have fun.

Luke Mason was the DJ and he was a star, he’s the house DJ at Pitcher & Piano Winchester and he played all the styles of music we wanted, our first dance song and our last song – unforgettable. I can only describe the day as completely seamless because I had to think of nothing but chatting to friends and family and enjoying myself. The team did it all!

We can’t recommend Pitcher & Piano Winchester enough as an events venue, whether it’s a big birthday, anniversary or wedding, it’s a great event venue in Hampshire.

A special thanks too to Emily Black Photography Hampshire, a local photographer, for the wonderful photos - I have attached some...

AVOID! We booked here for our Christmas Party when it was still Pitcher and Piano but they changed hands after we had paid our deposits. We had to pester them to get the new menu so we could place our food orders. They were very unresponsive. They changed the menu and basically added 'festive' to make it sounds like a Christmas menu but it really wasn't. The original menu offered a glass of fizz included but this was no longer honoured.

On the day, 2 of us arrived 20 minutes early as we wanted to make sure the table was set up and we could add place settings etc. The table was not even reserved. They started to put a table together but I had to interrupt and inform them that it was for a party of 8 not 6. They had to move a customer in order to have an area big enough. As it was a Christmas party, it would have been nice for a table to be set up with glasses, cutlery, decorations etc but they were putting out glasses as we were there and gave us some crackers. The bar itself was not even decorated for Christmas and no Christmas music was even played.

The drinks menu was not correct and they did not have any of the wines on it, we were offered an alternative and was given the option to try the wine but it was £7 more expensive then the one we wanted on the menu!

After 40 minutes our starters arrived (pretty poor considering we had pre ordered). The food was ok but I had a seafood cocktail that was served on a hot plate so the lettuce had wilted! We had to ask for cutlery!

When the mains came, our starter plates had not even been cleared and we had to ask again for more cutlery. One main did not arrive and when we asked were told they had served an extra of a different meal (they had not!), we had to ask 3 times where her meal was, even though the same meal had been served to other customers in the bar. This is terrible when we had pre ordered all our meals!

Most of the deserts were ok but the lemon tart was grey on the edges of the pastry which put some people off eating it.

When it came to settling the bill, we complained as the service had been so poor but the manager was trying to argue against all of our complaints and even tried to charge us for the extra meal that had supposedly been brought out! He did offer to take off the cost of the meal for the person who's main didn't come out at the same time as everyone else's but that was all. This definitely was not worth the £33 they charged!

Finally... the toilets! Avoid as they are quite frankly disgusting and if their toilets are that bad, what are their kitchens like?!

The young lad who was on his first night was trying his best and was very pleasant as well as the young girl working there, both of whom were taking the brunt of all the complaints. They are stars and...

Had a bottomless brunch for my birthday outing and all I can say it was the worst brunch I’ve ever had and the service was terrible.

I have had other pitcher and piano brunches in ocean village before which were amazing hence why I booked it, but this whole experience was so much worse.

Firstly, were not seated to our table when we arrived and took ourselves over, which we sat there for a while before anyone came over with any menus (even though it wasn’t that busy at this point). They also seemed like they didn’t know what they were doing or like they’ve ever done a bottomless brunch before. The drinks selection was pretty poor, in comparison to the brunch I had done previously which offered a variety of flavoured Bellinis. We were also originally told all 8 of us had to finish our drinks before we were allowed another one, until we argued that’s not how brunch works and if we did that then if someone’s a slower drinker it’s pressuring them to drink more. The manager wouldn’t come over to speak to us and just argued with us over the bar which was really unprofessional and he was sending out one of the waiters to speak to us when he could’ve walked 5 steps over. Eventually they changed the rules and said whenever an individual's finished their drink you can have another one. We also asked to have bottles of prosecco on the table instead to make it easier for them not having to keep coming back and we can re fill our drinks when we want, we were told this wasn’t allowed even though the previous brunch I’ve had at pitcher and piano allowed this on top of providing us with Bellinis/mimosas. The service as a whole was pretty slow but the server we had was lovely and apologised for the experience. However there was no reason for the slow service considering they didn’t have to make cocktails for everyone and we mostly all ordered Prosecco and orange juice which is pretty straight forward. The food was nice but nothing special and the chef had to come and take the food out herself from the kitchen as apparently they don’t do table service? We were provided no cutlery/ napkins or salt and pepper and had to ask for that along with continuously asking for cups for a jug of water. The toilets were not great and most of the cubicles had no toilet roll so I had to go and get another roll myself from a different cubicle (which had the toilet seat left up).

As a whole it was a really disappointing experience especially since I had high expectations from the previous one I had in ocean village. I would not recommend to anyone especially considering it cost £36pp which I’d say is a higher price range for a bottomless brunch. And all that was served was prosecco and orange juice and...