Lainston House

My friends and I family treated me to a pre wedding afternoon tea .. a beautiful location … with excellent service and staff very attentive.. the private room was decorated and was so beautiful arranged it made you feel very emotional…the tea and food was superb thank you Lainston for helping create such a wonderful occasion would highly recommend

Having seen Tom Hamblett on Masterchef and been very impressed with his dishes, the opportunity to experience a 3-course meal at Lainston was too good an opportunity not to take up. £85 for 3 courses, extra for additional sides, drinks and service at this level is pretty decent value, as long as the meal lives up to expectation, and it went way beyond that! We’ve been lucky to experience many 3-star Michelin and fabulous meals and restaurants all over the world, and whilst the theatre and starched service is not on the menu here, the food was amongst the best we have had in a very long time. The service is really friendly, the right side of familiar and the crew we experienced certainly knew the dishes and their wines. From the moment the home made breads and butters as a complimentary palette wetter were brought, it felt this was going to be good. Lobster (£10 supplement) was simply sublime. The scallop starter was possibly one of the best things I have ever eaten, to combine scallop, cauliflower, ponzu and raisins in a dish is audacious and it paid off! We both went for the signature beef fillet with beef tartare and roscoff onion stuffed with brisket - incredible. The additional side of truffled new potatoes were absolute perfection too. Desserts were simply outstanding - olive oil cake and the now legendary peanut and chocolate slice with banana ice cream. I can still taste it. We were celebrating a birthday and our anniversary, and we also got a little chocolate cake with a Happy Birthday, a very nice gesture in a high-end place. To top it all off we met Tom in person afterwards; you could tell he had been burning the oil for the last few months but was so humble, interested in what we had ordered and what we liked. We have vowed to try and celebrate our anniversary wherever he is cooking next time as he really is an exceptional talent.

Fabulous meal in the bar, lamb shank is just fantastic, to be repeated , halibut is also a great choice , great atmosphere and excellent fire place to warm you up. Congratulations to the chefs and Nick in the bar, a very good job with menu choices ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Truly brilliant stay. Room Rose which was well appointed and loved the little extras in the room, the snacks for an afternoon movie are great. Then onto probably the best meal I’ve ever had, the chefs table was outstanding, you could go up to the hot plate to watch the chefs in action and they even brought the food over to explain each course adding to the experience. Lovely stay and hope to see you all again soon

We had a fairly mixed experience, visiting for the night to celebrate a friend’s special birthday. It was OK but pricey, and for the money I’d expect the best. The room was clean and comfortable and our meal in the Avenue was good, service good and friendly and not at all stuffy, so that part of the stay was great, but as a hotel it’s not up to par at all. On arrival the receptionist who kindly offered to show us to our room couldn’t find it(!!), took us downstairs then upstairs then down again so that was weird. There was no hot water in the morning, despite running the shower for a good ten minutes so it was cold shower time. I called reception once I’d got dressed and was cheerfully told it was a known issue, which would be cured by running all the hot taps (shower, bath, two sinks) on full blast; we did this for ten minutes and it worked, but I was annoyed that a known problem with a known solution wasn’t something we were told about. One of the sinks was badly cracked, didn’t use it as I thought it might leak. Worst of all though they said we had to get to breakfast at 8 30 because it would be busy later, which we duly did (actually our friends were there at 8 20) and placed our order but we had to wait over an hour for our food, which really is poor. The full English wasn’t very nice; the black pudding was thin dry and looked and tasted as if it had been kept warm for ages, the sausage was pale pasty and barely cooked. They gave us two slices of toast between four of us, and it was just sliced bread, nothing fancy. So in short the breakfast is not anywhere near up to the standard of the food the night before, and the breakfast service is very slow and you’d be better off elsewhere. When I complained they were very apologetic but it still took a good ten minutes after that to arrive. To be fair the poor breakfast waitress was really embarrassed and apologetic and said there’d been a problem in the kitchen. I asked them to waive their service charge, which they did, but I’d not go back to stay there because it’s just too expensive for what you get.

Beautiful meal at The Avenue Restaurant at Lainston House Hotel. If you love a tasting menu and can appreciate the work that goes into creating them. Book a table at The Avenue, headed up by Head Chef Tom Hamblet winner of MasterChef the Professionals 2023. Truly a taste experience- add the wine pairing for an extra treat.