The White Hart

May 1st, 2023

Apr 28th, 2023

Apr 19th, 2023

This is an absolutely beautiful pub & garden and great that it has a small climbing frame which the kids all loved. Disappointing though that the bouncy castle wasnt inflated. There are several simple things that the pub is failing at which would all be very easy to rectify, but it doesnt seem like its being manager very well at all. 1. The staff all seem miserable and uninterested in being there. I think some training here would do wonders. Nobody wants to be greeted by someone looking annoyed or miserable when they are there to spend money. Most staff seem like they really dont want to be there. 2. The staff brining the food out to the garden struggle to find who theyre looking for as the table numbers arent clear and some newer tables dont have numbers at all which causes a problem when youve queued for a while to order food and cant give a table number. Youre then asked to go back to your table and find a table number close to yours. You then need to rejoin the back of the queue. Not great. Simple fix for this would be to hand out wooden spoons with numbers on inserted into a wine bottle. The customers then dont have to know their number in advance & the staff can easily find who theyre looking for. 3. The toilets were a disgrace, all blocked, broken seats, mess all over the floor. Very easy to have someone check them regularly and tidy up. A busy pub will obviously have very well used toilets but cleaning them at the end of the day only is not good enough. 4. There was mostly only one staff member serving behind the bar during our visit. Its busy as its a great pub but having a dedicated serving point separated from the drinks orders is the norm here as the queue very quickly becomes long when lots of people are ordering food and others are trying to get a drink. One person then deals with food orders whilst another serves drinks. Would be a 5 star review if these very simple things were dealt with. Again, beautiful pub and garden. Would love to see things changed by the time we come back.
Apr 28th, 2023

Stopped in here for a meal while out for a ride around the back roads of Hampshire. Classic looking country pub tucked away in a corner of Denmead, so we thought it was worth a punt. Hot food on a cold wet ride is always welcome. We could see when we pulled in that it was busy, which is always a good sign, eh. Not the warmest of welcomes though, the bar staff appeared to look through us like we were not there, shuffling stuff behind the bar and looking generally busy but without actually doing anything. Eventually we were barked at to move down the bar away from the staff and told to wait. Somewhat reluctantly we were asked what did we want. We ordered some drinks and were pointed to a table, still covered in the plates and left overs from the previous diners. We grabbed menus for ourselves after a while as none of the staff approached us but chose to pick from the specials board instead. After managing to catch a waiters eye, we were told to order at the bar, which we did. While we were at the bar the table was cleared but not cleaned. We then returned to the table and waited, and waited, and waited for our food. There is a definite Royston Vasey feel about this place, maybe because of our riding gear or maybe just because we were not local, who knows but there is that "this is a local pub for local people" vibe going on. Eventually the food arrived and totally saved the evening. We had gone for the mixed grills and they really were something special. Good quality cuts of meat cooked to perfection with some fantastic chunky cut chips, golden and crispy. A little on the expensive side but not ridiculously so. We did fancy a sweet treat after but there is something off putting about a dessert menu that reads... Crumble of the day Cheese cake of the day Steamed pudding of the ..... When everything is something of the day it just fills my head with frozen foods warmed through, so we gave dessert a miss. Would I visit again? Not unless I bought a house near by and spent some time feathering the nest. Food & drinks: Great but pricey food.
Apr 18th, 2023