The West House

Guys, you need to get yourselves to The West House. We were lucky enough to stay in their rooms and have dinner in their lovely dining room. The rooms are beautifully designed with lots of thoughtful touches - homemade biscuits and cake, good pour over coffee and fresh milk in the room when you arrive. Delicious food, great wine pairing, and warm attentive service in an atmospheric old weaver's cottage. I can recommend The West House without hesitation.

I’ve been dining here for years now and I’m sad to say it’s lost its spark somewhat. At £100 per person I expect a bit more. Maybe it’s comparing to other restaurants like the Fordwich Arms and Hide and Fox, but The West House is now a couple of leagues below these I’m afraid. Most courses were fairly average and lacked flavour. The squid a bit rubbery, the pasta bland and the chicken dry. Red mullet quite nice. Best dish was without doubt the desert which was some kind of blood orange trifle with rhubarb compote which was delicious I have to say. Service was very good as always and timing great. Always very welcoming and polite, but sad to say the food was not what it used to be, maybe it’s due to a set menu nowadays to keep restaurant bills down. A real shame.

Please be aware if you are out of the area, as this restaurant is a Michelin Star tasting menu set up, which was not explained to me on the phone when booking our table, as the Google search just states an Al-a-Carte fine dining restaurant & I thought it was a little strange, as when I was making the booking, the staff member wanted my card details, which I thought was odd, however, he reassured me that it is a system requirement so I receive a text of booking confirmation, which I did receive. When we arrived at the restaurant, we were greeted & seated & straight away a menu was given to us, which I read & saw at the bottom that the set menu cost was £100 per person, plus £55 per person for wine to accompany each of the 5 main courses, (Optional), so a total cost of potentially £310 a couple if you had the full menu, plus £17.50 each if you wanted the cheese board, post dessert with a coffee, (Unknown cost)! Then all the food started to come out which we then knew something was very wrong as we had not ordered anything at that point! Anyway- we declined to dine as could not justify the cost, plus we felt we were not explained to fully, the set up of the restaurant on the booking phone call & to attend as all would be fine, as they had had a lot of cancellations that evening, so space was not a problem! When we went to leave, the waiter said well that will be £50 each cancellation charge as all our food had been made in advance! We then started to explain our rational on the above points & as to how we had been incorrectly informed in order to get my wife & I inside the restaurant, knowing that if we were not going to dine, then my card would be debited £100! After my wife & I had had a discussion with the waiter, he went to speak to his manager & then returned stating the cancellation charge would be reduced to £50, which we paid & then left, but not after the waiter had said that we should have booked via their website & not Google, which I replied who knows which bespoke websites to look for when you are out of area, as everyone uses Google to search, which gives you all the detail needed when you are searching many eateries within a set timeframe! We then sat in the car thinking where we would go to sit down for food, we tried a few pubs & they were fully booked up, so we ended getting fish & chips & returning to the barn conversation we had booked out for a couple of nights! A pre 30th Wedding Anniversary outing we won’t forget in a hurry! :(

A wonderful experience from start to finish. Warm hospitality from the host and the staff in the restaurant. Highly recommend!

We dined here after receiving a voucher from a relative. We decided to stay the night as well. Overall the experience was positive. The food was very nice and the accompanying wines were well chosen. I would certainly eat there again. As for the stay, while the room was nice and the facilities plenty, there were significant shortfalls. Firstly there were notable water stains in the plaster around the skirting board and wall behind the towel rail. Secondly the hand towel hook fell out of the socket. Finally the shower had amazing water pressure and would have been great, however the drain must have been blocked as after 60 seconds operation it was overflowing. A pity considering the room was fairly expensive considering the area.

Amazing dinner tonight, fantastic service and excellent food and drinks. I highly recommend the west house…….

After a very difficult few weeks with family and health we decided to take my mum here for dinner for a treat. It was wonderful food and wonderful service. The bill was rather high is the only thing I would say! Just be prepared. Other than that lovely dining experience. Thank you.

We didn't stay here but we did eat in the restaurant. Its the 2nd time we've been. Food is always excellent but check out prices before you go. My opinion is that the food is excellent and up there with the best. This comes at a cost which is absolutely fine. However. Although I do appreciate that a lot of work goes into the various courses with fine ingredients which is where the cost is I did feel a bit disappointed with the optional extra cheese and biscuit course which for £15 for 4 tiny pieces of cheese, 4 biscuits and some pickle was a bit over priced. Tasty but over priced. That being said I would definitely go back. 4 of us ate food, 2 bottles of wine, 3 cocktails, soft drinks and 1 coffee nearly £600. I do feel that the 12.5% service charge should be optional and not automatically added to the bill.. this out of everything would be what would make me think twice about going back. As previously mentioned, the food is excellent so worth a try at least once. Staff are very friendly and attentive.