The Wellhouse — Restaurant in Winchester

I was excited to try the food here as its clearly advertised as everything cooked with fire. We left disappointed to be honest.

The small plates are great and some of them are better than others. Zero smokiness to the beetroot on the goats cheese dish - nothing to taste that resemble anything cooked on woodfire. The chicken wings had obviously been slow cooked/sous vide. They were so soft that they were void of any texture and again zero smoke flavour at all. Why not just cook them in the wood oven?

The fish bites again were nice - zero smokiness. Why weren't the tomatoes charred that went into the chilli jam on the side?

Three of the four small plates we ordered could of been served in any restaurant - no hint of wood wire smokiness to them at all

The flat breads were nice - as you would expect

We had two main course dishes- chicken and veal. Both nice but not blown away by the food at all. We had a side of hassle back potatoes what were nice and herby.

We shared a beignet dessert - again nice but not much better than you could get in pizza express to be honest with you.

I hate to be harsh but the chef here is really missing a trick on making this something special. There is a huge trend/movement in the industry with wood fired food/ food cooked with fire etc. I was really hoping this would be a great experience that reflected that but it was lack lustre and disappointing.

I would love to have a chance at writing the menu for the restaurant, guaranteed it would reflect the theme of the restaurant better than the current offering. There is so much more that can be done with a little imagination to make this a really special destination restaurant as well as a better offer for onsite guests.

Total bill £150 for 4 small plates, two main courses, dessert, three cokes and a beer. I don't see it as bad value for money but certainly left feeling...

We had a booking for four people for dinner at the Wellhouse. Upon arrival we were told our booking could not be met (as we had modified from 2 to 4 people that day). We were told the staff should not have accepted this modification from the duty manager. This was a weird start to the dinner as when pressed for why we were not called in advance, no good reply or apology was given.

After a challenge the staff eventually were wiling to seat us. Given there were empty tables through the evening this seemed to represent a basic unwillingness to accommodate us or a booking they had committed to.

Once seated we were subject to some fundamentally basic errors in service. It took over an hour for any food to come to our table. Other similar sized tables were fed long before us. Drinks orders were ignored, our drink glasses stayed empty for nearly half an hour. When The food did arrive it was mostly good but it did not make us feel like we had a good and authentic dinner. The portions were on the small side and meat quite plain for a venue selling their spice rubs for ten pounds a jar.

Whenever we raised any complaints with the staff they agreed but made no apologies and proceeded to ignore us for the rest of the service. This was exemplified by the duty manager ignoring us all evening.

We are local and want to support local but this is a shocking example where the staff did not care nor want any feedback to improve for others. I am worried others will be landed with a similar experience from this duty manager and the team which seemed to have slipped in standards compared to their reviews.

At the end we asked for service charge to be taken off, the duty manager had no interest in asking for why nor rectifying the situation. So...

Service from manager and colleague, was good and a nice atmosphere, food was overall poor - pork burnt end were just fat, grease and syrup - really unpleasant , mackerel was great, fish tacos a bit too salty. Main of £130 porterhouse ordered medium and well rested but was undercooked, tough with raw fat, likely from steak not being at room temperature when cooking, grill too hot and not rested long enough, the side of hispi cabbage was inedible as not cooked with core left in and the new season Jersey Royals were clearly cooked earlier in the day and not warmed up. We were comp’d 2 starters after complaining that the toilets were filthy (out or order noticed added shortly after), we were also offered the chance to talk to the chef when leaving which we declined as saw no benefit - we’d spent £226 on 2 courses with wine and service. And whilst it is a bit of theatre, please stop putting hot charcoal on to each course, removing it and leaving nasty gritty bits on everything. Evening held so much promise but despite attentive staff, food was poor. We still paid our 13.5% service charge as not servers fault. It was also amusing to hear the sustainability message surrounded by plastic plants hanging from the beamed ceiling and seeing all the apples and varieties of plums going to waste in...