The Willow Tree — Restaurant in Winchester

Genuinely surprised at some of the recent reviews for this place. Having been today, I strongly believe that there must have been a flurry of staff and friends who have left reviews because my experience was absolutely dreadful.

In summary: broken straps on high chair for my one year old son. Whilst sat in it, he slipped and began choking on the lap bar. We were then served two shandies by someone who I would describe as having never served an alcohol beverage before. Both had not been poured properly and the lemonade had separated at the bottom. The sausage bap served was equally terrible. My partner laughed as it came out - think two mini Richmond sausages, sliced in half and served in a pre cut Tesco own burger bap. Normally I wouldn’t mind as the shandies could be easily rectified with a spoon however it all this came to £12. At the prices charged, I would have at least expected the quality of the drinks and food to be worth the price I paid.

The sofa was like being sat on a camping chairs. The baby changing facilities were basic and the nappy bin full - we visited at lunch time. It was not very busy and gave off the impression that the toilet had not be checked by staff that day or previous evening.

The venue looks lovely and it’s in an ideal location. I suspect as it’s close to the uni campus that it’s amped more towards a student vibe. However being a Green King chain , I would have expected much more from this visit and took away absolutely nothing but the certainty that I won’t visit this pub ever again. Judging by other reviews it sounds like this has been the case over the past 6 months for many...

Oh dear. I think this place has changed owners without the website being updated. We visited this evening with family for one of their famous Sunday roasts. We think we can perhaps now see why they are famous, and it’s not because they’re good!

The tables were dirty (we had a deposit of what we hope was the previous guest’s dinner in the middle of it). They were not sanitised between guests. The member of staff serving us had his mask underneath his nose when he was giving me the Covid rules.

We ordered 3 roast dinners and a gnocchi. The gnocchi was fine. The 3 roasts were stone cold. We were trying to be understanding, knowing that they would have just reopened, so we didn’t complain. Unfortunately, we found a load of paper in the cauliflower cheese. (A small amount in mine, a huge amount in another). In fairness, they did offer to change our dinner but having waited 45 minutes for it we decided to remove the paper and plough on!

They took the cost of one of the meals off for us.

I think we can safely say we won’t be returning... I prefer a bit of cauliflower...

We went here as a table of 7, ordered 7 meals but only 5 came. Waiter did not apologise just said 'oops I forgot to put them in, I'll do it now'. Waited 1.5 hours still didn't come. He then says 'sorry we've run out of fish' and one of the missing meals was a fish burger. Swapped it for beef burger. Waited another 20 mins and still no food. Waiter thought he did a 'good will gesture' by removing the meals off the bill (which we didn't have). At the end, he forgot what drinks we had and asked. He got it wrong and added 2 more drinks than we had. Got them removed off the bill. Overall got no discount, were there almost 2 hours and 2 people didn't even eat. I've been a waitress and I get that mistakes happen but nothing was done to rectify anything and they just didn't care, really laid back and lazy customer service. The waiter's attitude was awful and he didn't even apologise or speed up the meals. The roast dinners were cold, the roast potatoes were not crunchy and the meat was dry. My sister had a burger and said it...