Chichester
The Royal Oak Inn

The Royal Oak Inn

Pook Lane East Lavant Chichester, West Sussex PO18 0AX, PO18 0SA, United Kingdom

Pubs • Food • Hotels • European


"A group of 7 of us went to The royal oak for a roast last sunday it was also my wife 's birthday .Living in chichester we have all been to the pub several times over the years but after our meal today we all agreed we would come back .When i rang up to book it i explained it was for my wife 's birthday and could we have a cake or something at the end to surprise her with i said i was happy to pay which the lady who took my booking said sure we will do something at the end for her no problem . The staff were nice enough but really not attentive and most were very lacklustre ,we ordered our food and there was quite a wait around 45 mins even though the pub was not that busy when we attended . So the food arrived and the lady got our condiments and then left , no one came back to check if we were happy with our food .Which to be honest we weren 't very happy at all as our roast potatoes were rock hard and tasted stale like they were a day old , also my sons fish was very overcooked and the batter was hard and my daughters roast chicken was missing the bread sauce .If someone had come back to check on us while we were eating we could have communicated our disappointment .So we all just carried on eating a very below average meal .Then at the end i had to go inside to ask for the bill and saw there was a 10 service charge on top which to be honest we received very little service so this seemed excessive and the price with the service charge equated to over £20 per roast .Which is one of the most expensive roast dinners in the local area and considering we all had rock hard stale potatoes again this price seemed very excessive . We did voice our disappointment with the lady that came to take our money which she was very apologetic and said there have been a lot of complaints about the potatoes i don 't know what has happened or gone wrong .But no offer of reducing our bill or taking off the service charge so we paid in full , £170 for a one course meal plus we brought a round of drinks over the bar when we first arrived so in total around £200 and to top it all off we never received anything for my wife 's birthday . Having left and got home and thought about the whole experience it was one of the worst meals we have had out in a long time and we do eat out regularly and in turn this did dampen the whole mood of our group and none of our group would return or recommend The royal oak far from it we would encourage people to eat somewhere else as this was a very overpriced sub standard meal . I did email the pub to explain our experience and how we were all feeling but they completely ignored me which again speaks volumes ."

The Sussex Brewery

The Sussex Brewery

36 Main Road, PO10 8AU, Chichester, United Kingdom

Pubs • Full • Dining • Brewery


"This was probably the worst Sunday lunch experience ever. I went here with my son and grandson and probably waited 10 minutes to just find out if they had a table for us. That should have been a warning sign as it didn 't look very busy. We were then shown upstairs by a friendly waitress to our table, we then waited another 15 minutes before she came to ask if we wanted drinks, we told her we also wanted to order food at the same time as we had a 2 year old with us. There were 2 other tables with people at them. The drinks arrived and then a while later the food arrived. I couldn 't quite believe what was put in front of me, it was nothing more than a pasta bowl with some obviously frozen veg that looked terribly soggy, this had strangely been arranged around 3 miniscule Yorkshire puddings that were the size of table spoon, on these were bits of potato that were hardly recognisable as roast potatoes and my son said perhaps they bring the potatoes separately I pointed out that the potatoes were already on the plate. The beef looked overcooked and was completely stone cold. The child 's roast for my grandson at £10 was so dreadful that we couldn 't even cut through the chicken as it was so tough. The plates were cold and so was all the food, even if the food had been hot it looked so disgusting I wouldn 't have wanted to eat it. As gravy had come in individual pots, i dipped my finger in to see if that was even hot and it was only tepid, it tasted so strange and nothing like gravy. As my son continued to try cutting his child 's meat, I told him I couldn 't possibly eat this as it was inedible to which he then agreed. The people on the next table overheard us and said theirs was also disgusting with frozen broccoli almost a puree. I 've had better food in hospital and school dinners. I can 't imagine who was in the kitchen but it certainly couldn 't have been a chef. Whoever has provided positive reviews recently can only be friends of the people running this pub now as nobody in their right mind could find anything positive about the food, it truly was disgusting. We told the waitress we were leaving as the food was cold and disgusting, she asked us to pay for the drinks that we hadn 't drunk, we had ordered wine to drink with our meal. It really was a terrible experience. The couple who ran this before the last people were great, the food was exceptional and so was the service, my son said she was French. We will not be stepping foot in The Sussex Brewery again. £17 for a roast that even the dog would have turned his nose up at. A real shame as my son lives just round the corner."

The Anchor

The Anchor

Selsey Rd, Chichester, United Kingdom

Fish • Wine • Coffee • British


"I feel very sorry to have to be honest but unfortunately we didn't have the best experience at the Anchor today. First of all the bad points the service today was not good at all. Everyone is very friendly, but it was so slow and lots of errors were made. We ordered our drinks, which my mum ordered an Aspall. The drinks took half an hour to arrive and when they did they bought to us an Old Mout. We questioned this as it wasn't what we ordered and we were told they didn't have Aspall. My husbands coke also didn't arrive so they had to go back for that. We ordered starters and our mains and then had to wait for another half an hour or so for them to arrive. We asked where they were and they were bought out a few minutes after. We were then waiting another 15 minutes or so for the plates to be cleared, which was actually done by the carvery chef because he noticed we'd been waiting so long. We didn't have to wait too long for mains again because the chef on the carvery took control of our table at that point. When our plates were cleared away we were asked if we wanted to see the dessert menu, which didn't arrive, so we had to ask again. Desserts were again about another half an hour and were also bought out by another one of the chefs who apologised for the service we had received and explained they were busier than they had expected and that there were a lot of new people working and in training. We asked for our bill when our plates were cleared and again it didn't come, so we had to ask a second time. There were quite a few other tables that were waiting quite a while for their drinks/orders/orders were wrong. The good the pub is beautiful, really nicely decorated and warm and welcoming. Despite the errors the hospitality team were all very friendly. A special shout out to the chef on the carvery who was really helpful and as mentioned above, noticed we'd been waiting for a long time. He was also very personable and was talking to everyone he was serving. I also appreciated the explanation and apology from the chef who bought us our puddings. The food was superb, couldn't complain about anything we ate. All in all, I think it's a shame that we had really slow service as it overshadowed the great food and made it a poor experience. There were a lot of staff walking around but nothing really seemed to get done and when it was it wasn't done correctly. I do think that this place could be so good, if the service is improved. I do understand the difficulties with having new team members etc however things just didn't flow and we were in the pub for 3 and a half hours due to how long we had to wait for everything. I would come back, because there are lots of good points but for the sake of the pub and for those who were working really hard, the service definitely needs improving. Parking: Parking spaces are quite narrow"