The White Hart, Wadhurst

SHOCKINGLY POOR

I have never in my life received such a hostile welcome to a pub. They've refurbished recently in a very bland, corporate style. The beer on offer, to be fair, is a good selection with a few unusual additions which is nice to see. That, however, is the one and only positive factor it what is an underwhelming, boring and frankly nasty pub. The food is "authentic italian" or, more accurately, bought in, frozen, mush. We had the homemade bread to start; an under-proved, over-salted lump of barely cooked dough, completely overpowered by rosemary. Then onto the meatball starter; advertised as italian meatballs with pomodore sauce and spaghetti. What was actually presented were the most bland, tasteless balls of breaded, deep-fried meat with a huge amount of uncoloured, overcooked peppers (which weren't even de-seeded properly) when both myself and my friend barely touched them, they were removed from in front of us, without an inquisition into why we'd not wanted to eat them. Then to main course, we'd gone outside for a cigarette to try and mask the taste of those terrible meatballs, and within 2 minutes of doing so, the young, perfectly hard-trying but ridiculously undertrained waitress came and shouted across the court-yard "your food's ready!" Why, I still do not know, they couldn't have held on for a further minute so we could eat at our leisure, I do not know. After being hurried back we came to our table to see the "authentic italian food" before us. The pizza that my friend had, was ok. Far too much tomato sauce, which tasted much more of uncooked tomato paste than anything fresh, but other than that the toppings were decent. And the dough, despite being almost totally unseasoned, was surprisingly well made. My lasagne really was an abomination. No béchamel sauce, tragically over-cooked pasta, tinned tomatoes with no other discernible ingredients and boiled mince. The whole thing was anaemic, sloppy and really quite disgusting. I had a fork-full and couldn't stomach anymore, so after being ignored several times I finally managed to usher over the manager and tried to explain my grievances. This was met by a surly "have you ever been to Italy?" That was possibly the most awkward, unprofessional, aggressive and thoroughly rude patter I have ever heard in all my years of eating out. And yes, dear manager, I have indeed been to Italy several times and in fact work everyday with a decorated Italian chef, whos run his own Venetian patisseries as well as working for decades in fine-dining Italian restaurants the world over. Yes, I do know Italian food and no, I do not appreciate at all being undermined by a twenty-something pub manageress when I am paying for her services. Needless to say, I made her take the food back and promptly asked to be brought the bill. After this being slammed down by the clearly, unreasonably irate girl, without so much as an apology, I was shocked to see the meatball starter, which neither of us had eaten, firmly printed at the top of my bill. I then asked for the bill to be reconsidered. Lacking the lustre to deal with the matter herself, she told me that she would go and talk to the landlady about it. I was therefore expecting her to make an appearance, but obviously she was too disinterested to do so, so I was left in the hands of the remorseless manageress to resolve the issues. Whilst my bill was being re-calculated, I was having a discussion about the terrible quality of the meal and service with my friend. During which conversation (which was no louder than any other, and certainly could not be heard by any other diners) I said "frankly it's a bit s**t. This was then used, I suppose as ammunition on the part of our delightful manageress, against me. Not by herself, no. She was too cowardly to confront me herself and instead relied on her teenage counterpart to, loudly and aggressively tell me to "stop swearing in the restaurant". This, of course was extremely embarrassing and hugely unnecessary. I was then told by the manageress that she "didn't like my (her) staff being threatened ". This was the single most audacious and inaccurate assessment I have ever been given in my life. The only people in this situation who felt threatened were indeed myself and my friend. Finally the bill came, I settled it and was gratefully set free from the awkward and unsavoury grasp I had been put in throughout the course of my meal. I am shocked by the down-right rudeness of the staff at the White Heart and am absolutely certain that if this issue isn't resolved post-haste then this apparent charming new addition to Wadhurst will fall, rightly, flat on its face. I sincerely hope the owners have a degree more sense than their employees and something is done. I would never wish a business to fail as I'm very aware of what people put into such things, but this experience has me close to condemning them to do so. I'm absolutely disgusted and will certainly never return, nor wish anyone else to do so.

30 Sep 2014 15:25