BITE user comments - Billyfish
Comments by Billyfish
...having been in again, what the bar area clearly needs is some of the tables removed. Lovely big fire place and what could be a very nice room indeed.
6 Feb 2015 12:49
A tad gastro for my taste, but it's been done well and not done out in identikit Farrow & Ball greenygrey like so many up and down the country. The beer is good, the staff are friendly and the food very nice indeed, it has its own smokery so was always going to be a winner with me. Not sure it has the kind of atmosphere that would make me drop in for a pint of an evening, I was there for lunch and as such it hit the spot.
6 Feb 2015 12:28
Well the below explains quite a lot. Visited the place last year and found it rather quiet and empty, thought it was a restaurant that did you a beer rather than a pub at the time. Now the place looks more like a pub that does food and a very good one too. Grand open fire with comfy sofas, good pint if Adnams, could have happily sat there most of the evening if I hadn't come there to eat. Luckily, the food was top notch.
6 Feb 2015 11:47
A magical place, little changed since I accidentally stumbled across it whilst trying to park at the Nelson on the main road some time back in the 1980s. Beef sandwich, a nice pint and a chat with the bar staff or one of the regulars, it’s been delightfully the same year in year out. What all pubs should be like as far as I’m concerned, I would be very pleased indeed if this was my local.
26 Aug 2014 16:27
Probably needs a gentle revamp to dust off some of the remaining bits of 70's style ye olde pubbe tom foolery, the flowery sofas at the back are a bit old hat, but otherwise a nice big old inn, with a good variety of well laid out places to sit. By that I mean it has dining areas but ones that don't intimidate you into thinking you've walked into a gastro pub/restaurant and make you wish you hadn't worn your wellies. Open fire, friendly staff and decent honest pug grub + some fancy food and sandwiches to cater for all. The menu said "From the Grill" on it. A fantastic throw back. Scampi & chips and sausage & mash were spot on (and locally sourced), the staff were friendly.
6 Jan 2014 16:34
Great that this has reopened. Hate to see closed pubs and a village without a pub is barely a village at all. It's a bit shiny and gastro. Looks not unlike my kitchen in fact (on a much larger scale and with people I don't know in it). I asked the bar maid what it was like before? "Dark and sticky" she replied. Can't help feeling it could have done with some of the intimate dark sticky areas being left in place, it is a bit open plan and white and Farrow & Ball painted and trendy Wendy (it's got that wallpaper that looks like book shelves, that's how trendy Wendy). Still, if the alternative is a closed pub, then who's complaining. Harveys and Adnams on tap. Staff were spot on! Food is good, pub classics for around a tenner or just under, above average quality by some margin, bellow average portion sizes praps.
6 Jan 2014 16:18
The Globe and Rainbow, Kilndown
Half a pub. The other half is now a private house, the locals fought for the remaining half to re-open as a pub. Once you know that, the place makes a little more sense. It's not very pubby, but it's a decent place that'll do you a good pint of local Sussex and Kent beers. Staff have always been friendly and chatty when I've been in and the food is well above average, very good in fact.
6 Jan 2014 16:05
It's another Shepherd Neame pub. You can tell by the carpet. Looks a bit bleak on the outside, but is a lot nicer on the inside, more sprawling and rustic than it looks and with a couple of rooms around the bar. Good bit of outside space too, nice place to sit in summer. Very nice staff and I've heard good things about the carvery. It's worst sin unfortunately is being slap bang next door to The 6 Bells which is just as nice on the inside but has a much better range of beers.
2 Dec 2013 18:49
I like this place. It's a bit self conciously light and airy shabby-chic by the seaside, but done really well and gets away with it I think. Good beers and some cracking guest ciders last time I was there, nice chatty staff and a good place to pop into after blundering around the antiques barns. Haven't eaten there but wouldn't discount the idea by any means.
20 Feb 2013 17:22
Very good food. Good food but manages not to stray into indentikit-gastro-land. The layout helps perhaps or the work of some unseen genius has held back on the Farrow & Ball paint. That said, I came in here because it was lunchtime and I was hungry rather than for a casual pint or two, so I can't honestly say how it works as a pub, other than to add to the praise of the local beers which were very nice indeed. Good service and a convivial if sometimes frantically busy atmosphere. Shall return at a less civilised time of day.
20 Feb 2013 17:14
It's a tad on the 1970s idea of olde worlde for my tastes, some things are a bit too shiny, but maybe that's just me. Definitely worth popping in though, for a half perhaps. It's not a pub as said below.
20 Feb 2013 16:49
I strolled on by this place as I thought it was just a restaurant. Turns out there is a bar inside, a proper bar too with a nice little selection of ales - Old Man amongst the more regular Sussex faces. In fact it's quite pubby and welcoming round the back, but it's a hotel at the same time so you can order cocktails too. How spiffy!
By contrast the dining room is acres large and sort of 1930s stylee I guess. Really quite nice and tasteful. The food is OK. it's good. It didn't blow me away. If I'd eaten in the pub bit I'd have probably thought it was a nice bit of low brow gastro, as it was dining in a restaurant it was alright. Prices were fine so I am guessing the below is out of date (and the Ladhimself's comments just entertainingly barmy).
20 Feb 2013 16:45
If the words "dining pub" tend to make you recoil slightly and wistfully long for the days when pickled eggs were the only temptation on offer, then arrest your fears, as soon as you enter this place there is a wonderful warm timeless atmosphere. Spend more than a couple of pints here and you will cheerfully let slip which decade you are in. They obviously do a great deal of dining business as the size of the car park and the conservatory out back attest, but this is still a pub you can happily roll up to for a pint without feeling you are getting in the way. It is perhaps not a "local" and didn't appear to have any chatty locals spraffing away at the bar as one might like when I was there. This is a pub that does food. Oh and the food is very nice, it is tad expensive, but you won't mind paying, that's how nice it is.
18 Feb 2013 17:18
Serve beer well, serve good food, be nice to your customers, set yourself up in a pub full of character and decorate it sympathetically. This old pub game is a breeze surely?
Effortlessly good pub with great views.
18 Feb 2013 17:03
Hard to review a pub after TWG has done so, he uses such pretty words and is generally correct from I’ve read. At the risk of repeating then; well kept beer in a good atmospheric old Kentish pub with friendly staff and folks at the bar who look as if they’ve appreciated the place for some time. The carpets are a bit staid and the décor old fashioned in a 70s way, but it gets away with it and, as below, a bit of Old Dairy or Rother Valley or Gadds even wouldn’t go amiss. I didn’t try the food, but will the next time, especially as lunch in the Dog & Bear a couple of doors down was an androgynous empty experience. This is the most proper pub of the two.
18 Feb 2013 16:44
The Dog and Bear Hotel, Lenham
I had the very odd experience of going for a pint in a Shepherd Neame pub in Faversham on the Saturday and then stopping off for lunch in Lenham after a walk on Sunday and sitting in exactly the same room!
Ok. Not really. The same décor though. And the same pictures on the walls and the same feature glass cabinet of wine bottles. The same beers on offer (of course) and also pretty much the same food. The food was OK. (Nice bit of roast lamb but shocking roast potatoes, chewy for some reason, I mean chewy for Gawd’s sake? How do you make roast potatoes chewy?), the staff were nice, Lenham is a really sweet little place, but this veered horribly toward an identikit Harvester style experience. Nice view over the square.
18 Feb 2013 16:23
This is a fine place. Fine looking and in a tremendous location. It’s just about hanging onto its pub identity, it is very food orientated and the food is very good if a bit pricey perhaps, but you can still prop up the bar or better, sit outside on a nice day.
29 Jan 2013 13:15
Is it closed?
It's a restaurant. Or was a restaurant. A nice restaurant with excellent food, but it's a bit of a stretch to still be calling it a pub in my humble opinion.
29 Jan 2013 13:08
Old fashioned. In the best way possible. The area, off a main road but in the mashes, gives it an on-the-edge-of-wilderness feel and the pub itself, cosy and aged has an old smugglers inn feel about it (perhaps because it once was). The whole effect; walking in from a windy stroll on the marshes and down into a warm welcoming low ceilinged bar with flagstones, a big inglenook fire place and two dozing cats is an experience to be encouraged. It flirts a little with that Ye Olde look from the 1970s, but gets away with it by being honest and having a good atmosphere and friendly service. Good banter at the bar, even on the quiet afternoon we visited. The food is of the same ilk; pie and chips, fish and chips, lasagna etc. pubby food, but pubby food done really well and in large portions too. And by pie, I mean a pie, not a dish with some puff pastry shoved on top of it. Old fashioned perhaps, but in the best way possible.
My one and only gripe would be that it’s a Shepherd Neame pub; they produce fine ales but that’s all the choice you get and if you are a beer tourist after a guest ale from a small local brewery you are out of luck.
29 Jan 2013 12:13
Quite near to where I live and I couldn't be more pleased. Looks great from the outside, great on the inside and great out back. A proper local with friendly staff and punters contributing to the good atmosphere plus open fires, a pub quiz and visiting bands. A good local is like an extension of your living room I always think and this place has certainly got that feel about it. Tim Taylor, Pride, Harveys, Bombardier on tap as well as some great locals - Golden Braid from Hopdaemon is going down very well with me at the moment plus decent pub grub
10 Feb 2012 14:48
The Salehurst Halt, Robertsbridge
Can't add much to what has already been said. Been there twice now in short succession and looking forward to my third visit. And my fourth. You know when you walk into a pub and immediately feel at home? You know when you walk into a pub garden and instead of a bleak patch of grass with rows of picnic benches and umbrellas there is actually a real garden with a sweeping view across luscious fields and trees? That's what it's like. Throw in some fine beers, great food and friendly attentive staff and you have a really top notch establishment.
17 Jun 2011 11:50
The Bell and Jorrocks, Frittenden
Dropped in here on the weekend for quick one, tidy little place. Unpretentious is the only word I can add to the worthy and wordy reviews below. A good friendly, hard working local where everyone was cheerfully getting on with the job in hand; having a decent pint, eating some straight forward tasty food and partaking in good chat.
26 May 2011 09:38
Mixed bag this one. Had a good Sunday afternoon there with a good beef stew, all was sweetness and light. Dropped in more recently for a couple and the atmosphere was a little more varied to tense. A big place that needs a bit of a careful scrub up, especially the areas round the back which look like something from the 70s. In a bad way. Atmosphere is more important though and something just ain't quite right.
3 May 2011 20:19
Good foody pub, neatly done up, probably at the expense of some of its character but a fine looking place none-the-less. Apart from, it has to be said, the bonkers Spitfire/wolf pencil sketch over the big fire place (after the style of those mawkish wolf-moon-faux-American-Indian-twaddle T-shirts). A praise worthy choice of beers and the fish and chips was top draw stuff thank you very much! I shall return.
3 May 2011 20:07
Stumbled upon this place while rambling in the area and gasping for a pint. A Spifire or even a lager would have done, so this place fairly knocked my socks off. Can only echo what is written below, didn't try the food but there was a bbq on (ale festival+good beer+good burger+live music = some sort of dizzy utopia) and if the home made burgers are anything to go by then this place deserves the plaudits. As for the beer, well I only wish I lived nearer.
3 May 2011 19:52
Good pub. A proper village local. Welcoming friendly staff, lovely big fireplace and decent if not great food (The Chequers is better for "dining" but lacks the atmosphere of this place). As it seems with most Shepherd Neame pubs the choice of beer is restricted to Shepherd Neame beers and there is rarely a guest beer. Luckily Shepherd Neame is a good beer, but it would be nice to have a choice occasionally.
31 Mar 2011 11:26
The Southampton Arms, Gospel Oak
I think it's right to shout about this place, it's excellent. Yeah, maybe a pastiche but it feels in no way pretentious or self concious. I struggle to find anything bad to say about it, certainly didn't find the beer flat. There is no lager and at times it can look like a bit of a beardy CAMRA meeting, but as I don't drink much lager and have a beard, this doesn't bother me much. The friendliness and enthusiasm of the bar staff is infectious and the bar snacks are very tasty and then there is all that lovely beer! I thought I�d died and gone to heaven when I first wandered in there. I hope they make a big success of this place and that others follow their lead.
22 Nov 2010 12:48
There are a pair of white leather sofas in an incongruous city bar style area of this pub that serve as warning that all is not quite at ease with itself here. Retro chic white leather sofas in a pub of beams and hanging hops? The fire place is lovely and there are enough cosy nooks and crannies from which to hide from great white beasts, the carpet could do with updating but hey. Well kept beer and a menu with dining pretensions, though I've only tried the more pubby scampi & chips and sausage & mash so far, both were beyond reproach. The piped music is a bit irritating, some of it the kind of "not by original artists" guff you get in supermarkets. Someone needs to stand back and take a wider view, or an outsiders view of this place, keep the good bits and see where it's going wrong, it has a lot going for it, the location and the look of the place are absolutely mint and it could be so much better.
22 Nov 2010 12:32
The Woolpack Inn, Warehorne
This has turned into a favourite haunt. Curiously, when I first came here a number of years ago it looked like so many other gastro pubs; someone had come along, knocked all the internal walls down, cleaned it up and carefully washed away anything meaningful and characterful about the place, leaving a nice old building detached from its past, its ghosts, its timeline and any kind of atmosphere. Since then, Ramblinns have come along and have retro-fitted it. I say retro-fitted, but as I don’t know what it looked like before I’m not sure that this is the right term. It may never have looked like it does now, can never be re-connected to its past, but at least the décor and atmosphere have been addressed. Gone is the minimalist open plan Farrow&Ball look and in are the internal walls, nooks and crannies, cosy seats, bonkers steam-punked bits and bobs in glass, wood and brass (up-turned half champagne bottle candle holders, chain and copper pipe loo roll holders etc etc) and the atmosphere now warm, welcoming and convivial. It’s a bit restauranty, but you can still have a good pint here – well kept Tonbridge ales and a central pubby area. It has a gin menu and the wine I am told is good. The food is a big draw and the main earner (the days we live in I fear). But the food is also top notch and locally sourced. The staff are immaculate, there has been a bit of a turnover over the last couple of years but whoever comes in is always very very good, very attentive and friendly. Throw in the bucolic little village and the views of the church and across the marsh and the local walks and this place really hits the spot. Someone has worked very hard to make this place work and it shows.
5 Jun 2018 11:38