Veranda Wickham — Restaurant in Winchester

AVOID... unless mediocre food and even worse service is what you're after. Three friends and I visited recently on a Friday evening and to kick things off our waiter dropped three pints of beer over us. It was an unfortunate mistake but just that, a mistake. However, what was unforgivable was the total lack of an apology, relocating us to an awful table situated uncomfortably close to the kitchen door, and I don't think it's unreasonable to have expected our replacement drinks or perhaps starters to be given 'on the house' but, alas, such customer service was not forthcoming. We ordered four separate mains and they all tasted vaguely similar, with nothing distinct to the flavour of each which was disappointing. The duck was tough, venison and lamb not much better, sauces too tomatoey, and generally no better than ready-made supermarket curries. At the end of the night, we saw a waiter who was preparing tables for the next day drop a knife on the floor and proceed to lay it on a table anyway (a small thing but indicative of the level of service at this establishment). When it came to paying, we were initially given the wrong table's bill. The bill was handwritten and ineligible and we only noticed it was wrong when the total seemed too high as otherwise it was almost impossible to read. After having to dispute with several waiters about what we'd actually ordered and how many drinks we'd had (one particularly egregious waiter even walked off while one of my friends was midway through trying to explain the error to him), they eventually rewrote us a new bill and had the cheek to include service charge - something we only realised we'd paid for after leaving when we reinspected the handwritten cheque and spotted 'S/C' had been scribbled down halfway down the bill. That all left a real sour taste and needless to say none of us will be returning to or...

Really disappointed after visiting Veranda. From the outside, it appeared to a potential gem. But will definitely not be visiting again!

The waiter managed to drop three pints on our table and said absolutely nothing - not even an apology - as he simply swept the beer off the table and towards the lap of one of our group. After a minute or so of nothing being said, we were ushered towards the table right in the doorway of the kitchen.

None of us were annoyed about the mistake as these things are going to happen. However, we were pretty horrified to find those beers on our bill at the end of the evening. (An extra £20.85)

The food was also poor. Between us, we had duck, lamb, venison and beef and most of it was really overcooked and dry.

The bill arrived with the service charge and, as mentioned, the three fallen beers added to the price. Funnily enough, the service charge was marked with just 'SC' on the bill and somewhat hidden a few lines from the bottom, with the waiter arriving with the card machine as soon as the bill hit the table.

And just when one of our group decided to ask about our bill not adding up, the waiter simply walked away mid-conversation. They did go on to remove the additional beers from the bill.

Up until that point, we really had given them the benefit of the doubt; we had not asked for any freebies for the beers or complained about the standard of the food. But there is absolutely no excuse for the quality of the service...

Absolutely appalling. The toilets were filthy looked like they hasn't been cleaned in weeks, hole in the toilet door, broken lock so had to hold the door with my feet whilst covering the hole with my hand plus hovering as.the toilet was so filthy and as a disabled person it wasn't easy, also had no toilet in ground floor had.tp go up flight of equally dirty stairs to get to them. The waiter was rude (an older gentleman) argued with us over what we had ordered. I had a vegetable madras, the vegetables were clearly frozen or tinned, the curry tasted of nothing other than chilli. No flavour what so ever. The drink my father wanted listed on the menu wasn't available The waiter ignored us after asking for the bill and starting picking bits of food off our table we hwith thathis hands, that we had spilled from our plates before we had even finished. It was too dark to see what we were eating and my dad had to use the candle to read the menu! No music or ambience So generally a really awful experience. Don't bother coming here if you want a good experience or even...