The Cart & Horses — Restaurant in Winchester

UPDATE! After a very bad experience from what were probably teething problems after the refurb, the manager invited us back for a free meal by way of apology, we were warmly greeted and the service was excellent. The food was delicious-we couldn't fault it. Thank you-we will now be back!

We are local residents excited to try out the newly refurbished Cart and Horses pub. This was the grand opening day and also my first day out of the house following surgery.

My whole family including my elderly mother and father in-law were present. Unfortunately, the lunch was a disaster. The waitress didn't have a clue what she was doing with the iPad and couldn't take the order properly. We had a long wait for drinks, my husband's drink was spilt twice and came unmixed and with no mixer (blackcurrant and soda) the waitress didn't know what a lager shandy was and had great trouble inputting the food order, so much so, that she abandoned us half way through taking the order and went to serve on the outdoor bar. My husband asked someone to help and she returned. We were told that the wait on the food would 'not be long at all'..... after 2 hours (no interaction from the waitress during this time or asking if we wanted any more drinks) the supervisor came to say that the children's meals had been burnt so it all had to be re-done.

My partner and I ordered the six stix, mother in law ordered the chicken liver parfait, my two sons both ordered a kids burger and fries and my father in law ordered the scallops with a side order of chips.

The children's burgers were extremely dry and they spat them out, my mother in law's parfait was tiny and no butter was served despite asking for it, our 6 stix was £27 and was tiny! One piece of halloumi between two people (costing £5 on its own), 3 peppers, cold mushrooms, 4 prawns, 4 pieces of sausage, and four pieces of pork-horrendously overpriced and badly executed.

My father in law was presented with a fish cake when he had ordered the king scallops, the fish cakes were therefore taken away and he never revived his main meal-just the side chips. He is diabetic so this was just awful.

The supervisor gave us our bill and assured us he would recompense us for the terrible experience but he only took off the drinks (all soft drinks apart from one shandy) and the rest came to £55.

We all left feeling hungry and upset and very very let down, so disappointing on what was meant to be a grand re-opening and really embarrassing to have taken our parents there. We really felt awkward and embarrassed for the waitress who had clearly received no training and was really struggling.

Awful,...

My friend and I visited today the newly refurbished Cart and Horse for my birthday. The outside looks very beautiful, well designed and lovely setting. We've been seated with our dogs outside on the new terrace area with a very welcoming fire place in the middle. Steps leading down to the main building. We ordered our drinks nothing special, what arrived fairly quickly. However, everything else was downhill from here with the final disaster, the hot chocolate at the end of our meal. The waiter who initially was serving us passed our table numerous times without asking would we like to order our food. When finally managed to order the food it has taken 20 - 30 min to arrive. The food looked very well presented, but absolutely not worth the price. My seabream came with 4 small new potatos and a few pieces of samphire with some chorizo pieces scattered around it. Tasted delicious, but I expect for that price a bit more. They might aming for a fine dining Michelin star restaurant, but it's still a village pub. No one came back to ask if we need anything or any more drinks. In my knowledge restaurants are making their money on drinks not on food. We waited probably 15 min to someone come and clear our table and offer the desert menu, but it hasn't come. So I went to visit the rest room and on the way in asked the waiters, who were standing right by the door for a desert menue. By now we learned no one properly keeping eye on the terrace so it's better if we go and order the desert rather than wait for someone to take it. As the weather turned bit rainy we opted to order thr special called build your own hot chocolate for almost £5 each. Sound as exiting it was the biggest disappointment and rip off. The chocolate nibs arrived in a PLASTIC mug, with warm milk, cold pouring ing cream and some mini marshmallows. Once we poored the milk on the chocolate nibs it was no chance they will melt in the warm milk. So we decided not to poor the cream in. This was a first time I had pouring cream instead of whipped cream with a hot chocolate. So we ended with a less than half of plastic mug of warm chocolate. However, the bill came as speedy as possible. We paid £56 with 12.5% service charge automatically add onto it for the menue and food we had to chase the waiter for. If they spent half of the time and money on revamping a perfectly fine pub, and put that time and effort to get service, portion and idea righ it would be a great place. Unfortunately, because the above I do not recommend or go back any time soon. It was a very disappointing...

It's a real mix of a pub, it's clear the brewery has spent a small fortune on the refurbishment and the pub looks lovely but many small details conspire against it which could and should be sorted by management.

We came in here for a Saturday lunch last week on our way home, the pub was busy and luckily we had booked. We were seated at our table relatively quickly and ordered drinks... This is where it started to go down hill.

Service was on the annoying side in that the staff member clearly thought a lot of their abilities and themselves and lingered far too long trying to engage people in talking with them..to the point it was uncomfortable... I've had American waiters that said less....

After ordering a pint of ale I watched the barman take about 5 attempts to pour it...pouring half the pint out each time till it was clear.... Never a good start in a pub.

This was then brought over and it was ice cold... But drinkable... Again.... It's ale not larger and a pub should know the difference.... But it's clear all their ales are like that ... And I didn't want to have another annoying discussion with our server on their views of beer....

Menus were then brought over which had stains on them...never great.... Plus it's clear that the menu never changes and there appears to be no specials....

The menu could be any chain pub in the area and that's very uninspiring. If you've spent all this money on a pub....produce an interesting menu to match....we ended up with pie and fish and chips.... It was that limited...

We were then presented with some focaccia... Breads are always a good sign of a restaurant... But this consisted of half a very small and ordinary slice of bread which was accompanied by rosemary and honeycomb butter.... They had clearly just got out of the fridge so it was solid....... There's not much point making fancy butter your customers then can't spread.

The rest of our food arrived and while fine..for the money it's not really worth it...10 chips to go with fish and chips is taking the p#ss a bit.... Fish well cooked but again quite small......

Generally the feeling I left with was disappointment, it could be so...