We recently had a meal with friends for her 50th birthday at the Pig. Lovely country house setting with drinks by a glorious open fire before dinner.
Dinner was superb, very fresh locally sourced ingredients, beautifully presented.
Dining in the conservatory was a little cramped and due to its poularity the 6 of us were squeezed on a table meant for 4 but it took nothing away from the experience.
Great atmosphere, fantastic food and very good friendly and knowledgable staff . Very relaxed atmosphere (anywhere the waiting staff wear converse trainers is ok by me).
We will return soon.

A little disorganised perhaps but the food makes up for any misgivings about service...spent a relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. Have no qualms in recommending this charming gastropub/hotel.

A very welcoming restaurant with rooms with plenty of seating to enjoy a drink before lunch. The service was excellent, plenty of tables in the restaurant and an easy place to enjoy lunch with old friends.
We felt that the wine was a bit expensive and that the service charge added rather a lot to the bill. However, the food was excellent and the ambiance and country-setting of the restauarant made it a lovely venue.

The Pig.

This is the refurbished Whitley Ridge Hotel and old favourite of ours for lunch and despite the rather unpromising name we have been back to try it on two occasions. The building is set in attractive grounds dominated at the front by a huge oak tree and on a fine day, even in winter, you have the sense that you're going to really enjoy yourself but I had noticed a black marble life-size statue of a pig tucked away in the corner of the garden that from a distance appeared to be relieving itself.

The lounge has had the carpet is taken up and plain rough and uneven wooden floors revealed. Normally fires burn but our waitress spent a large amount of time busying herself trying to get the fire to light which rather detracted from the ambience. We had come early because we had been told that we could only be served at 1215 or 1330 neither of which were particularly attractive however it later transpired that they were not busy and had in any event written us down for 1315. They obviously have not got bookings running smoothly yet.

Strangely our pre luncheon champagne came in unmatched glasses. Why, I wonder?

The restaurant area has been much improved with an attractive conservatory looking over the gardens but the tables are of plain wood and one of my guests complained about the lack of comfort in her chair another had a chair that was really too low so he looked a little bit like Johnny English sinking below the table in the latest film.

The menu is modern English eclectic with a particular bias towards pork and the products of their kitchen garden; two of my guests found it hard to find something they liked. There is no fixed-price lunch menu.

Only two of us chose starters my charcuterie plate was attractively presented in the walled garden salad but the meat itself was not particularly good being rather dry and hard. The smoked salmon was fine.

The venison pie was reported to be good but the steak was full of gristle and not particularly attractive. My pheasant was succulent but had not been hung and didn't really have the gamy flavour that one should expect; too close to chicken in my view.

We had deserts which were quite ordinary and didn't have that extra taste and look that can transform a desert into something quite exceptional.

The service was unexceptional but they stood at the table asking "who ordered the smoked salmon?" etc. One day I shall say “that is for you to know!” Why is it that at any decent restaurant they never know who has ordered what food.

I ordered a Croze Hermitage wine at £42 a bottle which, when I said it needed a bit of air, was promptly decanted for me and did taste better for it.

The whole meal excluding the champagne, which one of my guests kindly bought for me because it was my birthday, came to £188 for two first courses, four mains and four deserts plus wine, one bottle of sparkling water and four coffees. All in all I would say it didn't represent value for money as both the food and service struggled to be better than ordinary. This is a shame because it's a lovely house in the heart of the New Forest and a very pleasant place to visit.

Firstly I should make it clear I didn't stay there, but as it is not listed under Restaurants, I'll have to review it here.

The approach is stunning, I went there in November with a booking made by a friend at 1915, so obviously it was dark, but the illuminations, not only of the building but the surrounding land was very impressive. The car park is a short walk away from the entrance, but it wasn't raining so who cares (well I would if it had been but never mind)

So the first impression is good. Then you walk in.

Talk about being ignored, might as well have been invisible, so unabashed I walked up to Reception. The Receptionist gave me one of those looks that terrify the uninitiated, but I've had a few of them before so with a smile on my face I explained that I had a reservation, made by a friend for 1915. Now, i don't mind admitting we were 7 minutes late, but the look I got was amazing, she looked at her watch, she turned and looked at the clock and very audibly tutted. She told me to go to the restaurant. There are no signs, but I found it, walked in and again had to check if i had the invisibility cloak on!

Eventually someone who's knowledge of the English language left something to be desired came up and, after a certain amount of dialogue, tutted again, walked off and sent someone else over to see me. This turned out to be a young man with what I can only describe as attitude and so, reluctantly on his part, we were shown to our table.

The ambiance is great, the decorations superb, so much work has obviously been put into this place that I hardly noticed the 20 minutes that elapsed before anyone came and noticed us! the menu is probably one of the best i have seen, it would take me at least 6 visits to eat all the dishes I really thought interesting, in fact my friends and I all fancied the same things but agreed to each try different dishes just to check the variety. But it took what seemed like eternity for anyone to come and take our order!

I'm not an alcoholic (probably) but I do enjoy a glass of wine and I'd been there for getting on for 40 minutes before the staff even brought the subject up, our food order was placed and we were told that the 'sommelier' would be over to take our wine order. Please, how pretentious can you get!! We sat for another few minutes, before I lost my cool and demanded someone come, 2 minutes later a charming young lady arrived, took our order and left, only to return another 3 minutes later to say 'I can't find that one is there anything else you want'. Even my friends, who have much more patience than me were getting ratty by then. Most of the wine is seriously overpriced, the norm being £60+ which I am just not prepared to pay for what I know I can buy in Oddbins for £10. Our starters arrived, our glasses remained empty, but eventually the wine arrived.

Back to the positive, the starters were delicious, I had wild mushrooms allegedly picked in the New Forest that morning and I'm not disputing that, all three of us loved the food. the plates were cleared and the main courses arrived just before one might have thought it was too long a gap. I had chosen their home made Fa...t (no jokes please and, apparently, a word you are not allowed to use on here, but a dish widely recognised in the UK with a name that has been used to describe gay men). 'Brains' it certainly was not, it was wonderful, one of my friends had a meat pie which looked and tasted wonderful and the other had Scallops which he judged to be perfect. One of the best meals I have had to be honest.

We were asked if we wanted dessert and menus were produced, it was 10 minutes before i asked, rather loudly, if someone could come and take an order. As I try to avoid desserts and, frankly the starters and main courses were 'elegant sufficiency' we ordered one and two spoons. The spoons arrived but not the dessert. I lost track of time, but what seemed like an eternity later, another waitress came over and asked if we wanted dessert, we politely explained that we had ordered, she went away and another waiter was dispatched to inform us that they had no record of what we had ordered, despite the menus having been taken away! Eventually it arrived, again it was judged perfect.

I asked for the bill, we waited, I asked again and eventually it arrived. I could not believe it when I looked at the total, less than £40 per head (we had picked the bottle of wine carefully and had two extra glasses to fill in the time). This was great value and truly (not only for the wrong reasons) memorable.

Having eventually persuaded someone to take payment we left at about 2245. They could have covered our table twice if the service had been up to scratch, no wonder it is so difficult to get a reservation.

To the owners I would say this is a disaster waiting to happen and an opportunity you should not miss. The product is superb, the delivery abysmal.